


Baggins and The Smith

by elluvias



Series: Baggins and The Smith [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Age Difference, Fluff, Gen, Kink Meme, M/M, like seriously you guys will vomit rainbows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 28,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elluvias/pseuds/elluvias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: So we all know Bilbo has a terrible memory for first meetings (aka Gandalf) and the scene with sweaty Thorin working over a forge (drools). I'd really like to see Bilbo meeting Thorin when hes a young man before/or just after he became master of bag-end.</p><p>Some dwarfs have come to the shire in winter looking for work to feed their people. Maybe Bagend needs some new chandeliers/repairs. Bilbo cant resist visiting the town forge everyday to admire Thorin work hard and honorably to feed his people. Que romance and hot sex in a forge. And a sad good bye.</p><p>Then the quest happens and Thorin is a little more then miffed Bilbo doesn't remember him. Maybe its the beard or the fact that Bilbo never knew he was a king and it throws him off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which There Is a Baggins and A Smith (And Two Mischievous Dwarves)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deliciouspineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=deliciouspineapple).



Bilbo Baggins liked to consider himself a respectable hobbit. He liked good food, good stories, good leaf, and warm beds and wanted for nothing more. Except that perhaps, he did. As the new Master of Bag End, he was considered to be one of the richest hobbits in the Shire. It didn’t matter that the cost came at his parents lives, it was unfortunate, really the others said. Yet they all quite merrily tried to push him from grief back into a more hobbit like mentality.

Being as he was, a respectable hobbit, when he heard peals of childlike laughter in the full midst of some mischief his very hobbit like instincts turned his feet towards the sound. It was the ways of hobbits, you see, to look after each other, and even if Bilbo Baggins of Bag End had been dealing with a most un hobbit like melancholy he still had a hobbit core. That meant stopping the trouble before it really started and taking the young hobbits to their mothers for proper talking to-s.

Bilbo didn’t recognize the rather large children half covered in mud and....honey? Still the hobbit pulled all the maturity he had, hands on his hips stared down at the unusual children, for something was off about them, and stared at them. 

“What are you two _doing_? No, don’t just stare at me lads, up you go! Where’s your mother?”

Bilbo was a bit startled to realize the children were only just a hair or two smaller than him in height. Yet they were very much children with mischevious muddy faces and sticky hands and clothes.

“You see-”

“-we were-”

“-making sure that-”

“-the pots on the cart were secure-”

“-but they weren’t, so we fell-”

“-into the mud puddle here-”

“-and the pot spilled all over us.”

“Mother isn’t here-”

“-she left us in Uncle’s care-”

“-because she had important business-”  
“-and Uncle’s working right now-”

“-so please don’t bother him!”

Bilbo felt his neck ache ever so slightly as the children talked as if with one mouth but two bodies. Still he followed the explination well enough, because he was half Took and Tooks always understood when mischief was afoot.

“Very well since your Uncle cannot watch you, come with me. I’m Bilbo Baggins and I’ll make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“You needn’t go through the trouble, Mr. Boggins!” The slightly taller child exclaimed, quite content to try and wriggle out of being watched and to get into more mischief.

“We can take care of ourselves, Mr. Boggins!” The other, slightly smaller one puffed up trying to look responsible. It did not help, not at all, when he was still covered in mud and honey.

“No, I must insist. At least until your Uncle isn’t busy.” And the two children tried to protest, to wriggle and slink away but Bilbo stood his ground. It didn’t matter if the children weren’t hobbits, as shown by their booted feet, children needed watching. And if by the slight wear in their clothes indicated that they were a bit underprivledged, then Bilbo felt that it was even more his duty to watch the children while the Uncle worked. It was the way of hobbits, to work together. And with that in mind he herded the two very dirty children up the hill and to Bag End.

Bilbo, despite being young himself for a master of Bag End, was a sought after care taker. It took some cajoling, and promises of food, to get the two mischievious not hobbits to undress and get into the bath. And when Bilbo had taken the dirty pile of clothes and put them in the wash tub to soak in sudsy water he came back to find the two children not a lick cleaner in his tub. So with all the mastery of a frequent child carer of his unruly Took and Brandybuck cousins, he rolled up his sleeves got a cloth and soap in hand and set to the children with all the vengeance of a mother hobbit.

And when they’d gone through two bathtubs of dirty water Bilbo finally got to guess what the children were.

“Are you dwarves?”

“Of course we’re dwarves! What did you think we were?” The blond one cried out indignatly, curled up in several fluffy towels being forcibly dried by a rather determined hobbit.

“Dirty children, big dirty children.”

“We’re not dirty!” The dark haired one pouted from his own pile of towels, now having the audacity to look offended.

“You were when I met you.”

Bilbo went to his room and came back with clothes. Their clothes wouldn’t be clean til tomorrow, and he was loathe to put the now clean dwarf children back into what would certainly make them un-clean again. They finally were dressed, clean, and presentable. It was then that Bilbo realized that he hadn’t a name for either child.

“I’m terribly sorry! When I introduced myself I entirely forgot to ask your names. You are?”

“Fili!” The blond one said, his head high with pride.

“And Kili!” The darker haired one interjected.

The two children bowed in unison. “At your service Mr. Boggins!”

Bilbo knew the ways of children far too well to know that he couldn’t convince either one to call him by his real name.

“Pleasure to meet you both. Now come with me, it’s time for lunch.”

At the mention of food and that they were to be getting some, the children lit up like stars. It was good to see that dwarven children were just like hobbit children in key areas. Easily manipulated when the promise of food was dangled in front of them.

Bag End had life in it like it hadn’t had in months. There was movement and laughter, the smell of food being cooked, and the sound of more than just a single voice in the large halls of Bag End. Dwarf children were, without a doubt, exactly like mischievous Took and Brandybuck children. Ever inquisitive, ever clever, and always looking to be where they weren’t supposed to. And when the sun began to set Bilbo bundled up the brothers like any respectable hobbit would bundle up a child, and they set off to where Fili and Kili said their Uncle would be.

They led him to the smithy’s place. Bilbo remembered that old Tegrin had taken ill and that the Shire was without a smith while Tegrin recovered. The forge glowed hot and the sound of a hammer was steady and rhythmic.

“ _Uncle_!” The twin voices of Fili and Kili rang out as they ran inside the forge. The hammer stopped and as Bilbo trailed behind the eager children, he could hear a warm chuckle in response to the children’s chatter.

When Bilbo got to entryway, he could hear a low masculine voice very adult voice address the children. “Why are you dressed like that? Where are your clothes?”

“Well we-”

“-you see uncle-”

“I can answer that.” Bilbo piped up.

Three sets of eyes settled on him, two sets sending him identical pleas for mercy while one stared at him with wariness. Bilbo couldn’t help but feel small compared to the dwarf smith, and he flushed slightly under the steady gauging gaze.

“Your nephews,” Bilbo began, without a hint of accusation in his tone. No, it was a bit more like amusement, which he really shouldn’t have at finding two unsupervised miscreant children running amok in the Shire because he was a respectable Baggins of Bag End. Except he was also a very irresponsible adventursome Took in equal measure. “Got into some mischief earlier. Nothing big, but they ended up being covered in mud. I didn’t even really realize they were dwarves at first, and when they told me their mother was away on business and that you were extremely busy and honestly they hadn’t done any harm, I decided to look after them for the day. Their clothes are drying right now, and I’ll return them tomorrow. Ah- I forgot once again to introduce myself. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, pleasure to meet you ser.”

“Thorin.” The dwarf answered curtly. “Thank you for looking after my nephews. What would you like in repayment?”

Bilbo felt his mind muddle for a moment. Repayment? That sounded so formal and much less like a tiny favor given back or forth like what was accepted in the Shire. He felt a sense of nervousness take hold, his Took-ish backbone fleeing as his respectable Baggins side flailed helplessly. Why did it have to sound so formal? He grasped at something, anything, because he didn’t want money nor really anything else....

“May I....watch them again tomorrow?”

Thorin looked surprised at the request.

“Or really, whenever you don’t have time to watch them yourself while you tend the forge. They’re a delight, really, and I don’t suspect you’d like them running around unsupervised in the Shire.”

“ _Uncle_ ” The brothers began in unison. “ _We want to be watched by Mr. Boggins. Plllleeeeeeaaaaasssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee._ ”

A brief, fleeting look of amusement crossed Thorin’s stern and wary countenance. Bilbo could see the moment he relented in the face of his nephews combined plea.

“Very well, Mr. _Baggins_. I’ll send them to you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Thorin. I look forward to it.” And with that, and a little wave to his new charges, Bilbo turned and left the forge. He didn’t think at all about how hard Thorin’s muscles looked with his shirt sleeves rolled up and soot on his skin. He didn’t at all think about the thick wild hair or the intese eyes set on him. No ser, he did not. Bilbo was a respectable responsible hobbit, even if he was considered little more than a child himself, despite being Master of Bag End. And if he was lying to himself about his own thoughts no one knew the wiser, especially since it was too dark to see his blush.


	2. A Hop Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo has started finding himself the caretaker of dwarves.

It was three days later that Bilbo found himself making lunch with Fili and Kili. Perhaps it’d be exhausting and harrowing, watching these two dwarven youngsters who were apparently older than him by decades, if it weren’t for the infectious joy they brought to Bag End. It had been the first official day that Bilbo had become their daytime caretaker that a daily routine was established.

It was why he was making lunch for four, instead of three, and directing mischievous dwarf children to put the food _properly_ in the basket. When Fili and Kili had unintentionally told Bilbo of how Thorin worked, day and night, to make money and feed not just them but others whom were dependant upon him....well Bilbo found his hobbit heart softening towards the dwarf smith. He hadn’t pressed or asked for more information, it wasn’t proper to ask such things, and had quite cheerfully declared that they would bring Thorin lunch and dinner. So they did that.

Every day so far Bilbo and the kids cooked lunch and dinner and took it to the smithy. Perhaps a few peculiar stares were thrown his way because of it. He was quick to remind his fellow hobbits that sharing food was a hobbit custom. So they brought the food and Fili and Kili would drag Thorin from his forge, and they would eat.

There wasn’t much conversation between Bilbo and Thorin. It wasn’t that Bilbo was too intimidated to speak, there was quite a lot of conversation during the shared meals. It was that Fili and Kili kept the conversations going and Bilbo or Thorin voiced an opinion one way or another and the brothers would keep talking.

And while it was loud, and Bilbo was always fretfully trying to teach Fili and Kili hobbit manners so he could bring them with him to other hobbit holes, it was comfortable. Like his favorite dressing gown, bright and coloroful and many had the opinion that it was a bit too bright or colorful, but it was the most comfortable thing in the world. And it was less than a week, where Bilbo found that sharing meals with a taciturn smith and his two boisterous nephews became something akin to a new home. Not that he’d say it aloud, because he was aware how he was intruding in the dwarves lives and stealing the children for his own selfish reasons.

And he wouldn’t say how his ears would burn red when Thorin’s work rough hand would accidentally brush against his and it would warm him far better than the forge nearby. Bilbo was a respectable hobbit, despite being a teen. He knew his place, his average looks, and generally quiet demeanor would do nothing for a smith like Thorin. So he would smile despite the warm flutters and herd Fili and Kili back to Bag End, and ignore that perhaps he wanted a bit more from the smith than just being able to look after his nephews.


	3. The Stubbornness of Hobbits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bilbo unintentionally declares his intentions towards Thorin and refuses to let pride ruin his dwarves.

It was in late autumn that Bilbo’s rather protective Took-ish nature reared its head once again. In the days that turned to weeks, that ended up to months, that Bilbo finally, and quite accidentally found where Thorin and his nephews were living.

He had gotten up early, quite before any sort of respectable time that one normally thought of making breakfast. Frost was on the ground, cold and glittering ice crystals on the brown grass, and the last of the leaves were hanging desperately from the trees. Bilbo’s breath misted in the air and he walked in the comfortable cold silence of the pre-dawn hours around hobbiton.

Bilbo didn’t talk about the nightmares that plagued him. Whom would he share his nightly horrors with? Fili and Kili, who despite their advanced age in comparison to him, were much much younger than him in manner and mind? Perhaps Thorin? But the smith....Bilbo knew that he and the dwarven blacksmith were close, that they were (dare he think it) _friends_. And it was the nature of friends, or perhaps Bilbo’s own ability to observe the world around him, that made him realize that Thorin was shouldering something quite heavier than his nephew’s welfare. That there was something so dark in Thorin’s past, that every time a smile would come, a shadow would flit over the dwarf’s eyes and then the unmistakable look of loss. Bilbo did not know what that loss was, and perhaps, he was the only hobbit in Hobbiton to know what it looked like. Hobbits lost things, important things, sometimes. Like family members and loved ones, but as to date Bilbo was currently the only hobbit in Hobbiton to have lost something important recently and unexpectedly.

Bilbo was not so presumptuous to think that he was the only hobbit in the Shire to lose important people recently. No, he knew others had, but those who understood his particular sort of grief were over in Bree. Far too away for him to nip over to chat about nightmares, and those whom were close....well they had their own worries to deal with. And if Bilbo was prideful in one thing it was his ability to help lessen the burden of others.

And so he was quite content to walk in the cold and when he found the run down barn that had once been farmer Maggot’s before he’d taken it further out, well his feet were quite content to walk past it. That was, until he heard a familiar sort of sound.

Dwarven snores, while to the untrained ear, were all alike. Bilbo found that they very much weren’t.

Fili and Kili both had their own particular snores. They could be similar at times, but if you listened well enough, and Bilbo did listen, he could tell Fili from Kili. There was a third distinct sort of snore as well, one that Bilbo had never heard, but would let his Tookish side put money on it being Thorin.

And it started to click into place as to why Fili and Kili never wanted Bilbo to come pick them up. How Thorin deposited his two nephews in Bilbo’s care every morning and how they always shared their meals at the forge or in Bag End. Bilbo had half a mind to march into the barn and shake his dwarves awake and give them a talking to that would make even the Sackville-Bagginses shrink back in shame.

But Bilbo knew that dwarves coveted their pride, and their honor, and understood perhaps that they were ashamed of their lodgings.

It made Bilbo wish to smack them all the harder.

His nightmares forgotten, for the moment, the tiny hobbit stormed back to his own home in preparation. For he was Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, and he was a respectable hobbit of fine quality with wonderful heritage and he would not let his friends freeze to death because of their own pride.

When he returned to Bag End Bilbo went to the first place his Tookish heart told him to go. Attacking his guest rooms with the same amount of ferocity as Fili and Kili usually attacked their meals, Bilbo set to work. He prepared the rooms, not for guests, because Bilbo had long since stopped thinking of the dwarves as guests, but as relatives. It would be a permanent safe haven for those stubborn foolhardy pride infested dwarves. They would get the fluffiest pillows and the softest sheets and by Alue they would be grateful for it even if Bilbo had to beat them with his ladle til they relented. And they would relent, for Bilbo had the worst (best) two families placed together when it came to stubbornness.

The boys showed up a few hours later, cheerful and bright as ever. They poked their heads into the room where Bilbo was currently making Thorin’s eventual room more suitable for the smith.

“What has-”

“-that poor pillow-”

“-done to you, Mr. Boggins?”

Bilbo turned his head to look at the two young dwarves, hands on his hips. Fili and Kili looked a bit wary, for they had learned that hands on hips meant trouble. It also usually meant a bath, and Fili and Kili would rightly fight a bath right now. They were as clean as hobbit children! They swore! Because Bilbo had taught them how to be proper, and a bit hobbitlike, and they hadn’t done anything yet to get that look on Bilbo’s face.

“You and you are coming with me.” Pointing at both boys Bilbo began to march out of Bag End with a single minded purpose. The young dwarves trailed behind the hobbit, whispering amongst themselves as to what they had done, or what Bilbo could have found out they’d done, that had gotten him so tetchy.

When they got to the barn that they had been calling home, but not really, because home was with Bilbo and his warm smiles and good food, and gentle undwarvish manner. They were confused. That was until Bilbo rounded on them. “Get your things! All of them! And show me what is Thorin’s. You are staying at Bag End from this moment on and if you dare to say otherwise you’re not getting dessert for a week.”

That was a threat the brothers heeded and they quickly rounded up their meager belongings. They offered to help Bilbo with Thorin’s, but the hobbit was in a ‘Tookish’ mood as the other respectable hobbits would call what Bilbo was doing. Fili and Kili would correct them, because Bilbo wasn’t being ‘Tookish’ as much as he was being ‘Bilbo’. So they followed the determined halfling back to Bag End.

“This is your room.” Bilbo announced when they got back to Bag End. It had been a guest room, the boys knew it, though it had only the day before had a single bed inside it. Now there were two beds and two chests and two night tables, and it was a room that was their own. The few things they’d left at Bag End were arranged neatly, as was the wont of hobbits, and comfortably. Like they’d simply left their room the night before and now were returning to it. Like it had been home all along, instead of makeshift beds and hard floors in rooms that didn’t belong to them. This did, it did, because it was Bilbo’s house and Bilbo wasn’t just some strange hobbit. He was their hobbit, their hobbit who sometimes they thought of as quite like a second mother. Much like Thorin was not always an uncle but a father.

The boys scrambled into the room, depositing their belongings on the floor before scampering back to Bilbo. The young hobbit found himself pressed between two dwarves, quite unable to breathe, but it was alright because he was being hugged by his two favorite younglings in all of Middle Earth. And if he felt tears in his hair or a bit of shaking from the brothers he didn’t mention it, as he let them hold him, content to know he had given them something far more important that just a warm bed and a room of their own. He had given them a home, and that was all that mattered.

When hours later Bilbo went to the forge himself to fetch Thorin for dinner, he lingered in the entryway watching the master blacksmith at work.

And it never ceased to rouse something quite unrespectable in him to watch the dwarf work. It was something akin to lust, but lust wasn’t it. Lust had been at the beginning, when there had been little else but Thorin’s physique to capture him. And now it was closer to _want_ because he knew Thorin, knew his dry humor and rough demeanor, and how very deeply he loved his nephews. Bilbo knew he was young, scandalously so in some eyes, but he was quite sure he was falling in love with the dwarf smith. He also knew how plain and small and hobbitlike he was in comparison to Thorin’s rugged handsomeness.

So he watched until Thorin finished the piece for the evening. His blue eyes, stormy and intense settled on Bilbo. There was a twitch of a smile underneath his beard and it made all sorts of butterflies flutter in the young hobbit’s stomach.

They didn’t talk for a long moment, staring at each other until Bilbo shifted uncomfortably and looked down. Really his Tookishness fled in the wake of the stare, retreating to fan itself uncomfortably warm while the Bagginsness stayed and flailed. Then Bilbo remembered why he had insisted he come alone, and both sides of him were distracted by hobbit irritation at his family preferring to freeze itself than ask for proper lodgings.

“Thorin, I know you look like a bear.” And well wasn’t that the most ineloquent thing to start off with? It made the dwarf look at him with a brow raised and amusement beginning to show in those captivating eyes. Not that Bilbo noticed they were captivating, no sir. He had business to attend to and that business was telling Thorin what he thought. “And it is all well and good you are so covered in hair and make it look very attractive, but I very much doubt you are a bear or a wolf or any other menacing predatory creature covered in excess amounts of fur. As to that observation I have come to the conclusion that you cannot actually survive the coming months in some strange den you found, and have decided that during the winter you are not going to freeze to death and become a dwarven icicle. So I must put my foot down, and have. You are going to live in Bag End, with me, and if you refuse I shall take you by the beard and drag you there every night until you accept the fact that you are now a resident of Bag End and not a dilapidated barn. You, Thorin son of Thrain and currently dubious caretaker of Fili and Kili, are family. And as family, my family, you are staying in my house because that is the sensible thing to do.”

Bilbo gestured as he talked, his hands speaking just as much as his mouth. He punctuated everything with the perfect hand gestures, pointing at Thorin occasionally. He wanted the dwarf to know _exactly_ what he felt towards that dwarven sense of stubborn pride.

He didn’t notice, not at first the amusement in Thorin’s face, nor the spark of anger from wounded pride, that then settled into a look of utter astonishment. Bilbo from all he had read on dwarven culture, all he had learned from his own little pack of dwarves, did not fully comprehend what declaring that Thorin was his family meant. He didn’t know how deeply it would be felt, or how binding the words were. Bilbo was quite unawares he had just wormed his way into the Durin line, a most noble line of dwarven royalty. He didn’t know what giving a home, however small and homely that it was compared to the lost kingdom of Erebor, truly meant to Thorin. And that in his own strange little way Bilbo Baggins had declared, in dwarven culture at least, that he was courting Thorin Oakenshield in the most intimate of ways.


	4. Braids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo is courted, quite unknowingly, by Thorin.

“This lock is about as sturdy as your favorite doily.”

Thorin stated with a glare most impressive set on Bilbo’s door. He finger tapped against it, grunting in disapproval at whatever flaw he saw.

“It is strong enough to keep the Sackville-Baggins out of my home, and that is all I really need it to do.”

Bilbo sat in his favorite chair, knitting needles in his hand as he worked on a twin pair of scarves for the boys. It had been less than a week since Bilbo had forcibly moved his dwarves into Bag End. In that time he learned that there were a great many things Thorin disapproved of in Bag End. Namely the locks on the doors and latches on the windows. Honestly if one listened well enough to Thorin, some great calamity would swoop down upon them. Perhaps a great calamity had swept down upon Thorin at some point, Thorin didn’t say, and Bilbo didn’t ask. He simply let the smith poke and prod his hobbit hole, examine it for weaknesses (which he found many) and set about to fixing them.

Bilbo didn’t know that his silent approval of Thorin’s perusal of his home meant that he was accepting Thorin’s judgement upon the state of their shared home. That when Bilbo didn’t protest when Thorin set about fixing everything he had found wrong, that Bilbo was going quite amicably along with the courting process. Thorin found himself quite amazed that the little hobbit was so knowledgable in dwarven customs, and that he had found, somewhere along the way, that he was growing ever fonder of the hobbit who watched over them.

“I’m going to fix it.”

“Mmmmm.”

And if the neighbors thought it odd, which they most certainly did, they had not the stoutness of heart to tell Bilbo. Not when he was always surrounded by dwarves. Going to the market, visiting friends, visiting family, going for brisk walks outside. There was at least one dwarf in Bilbo’s presence. And it was quite remarkable, really, to see such a tiny unremarkable hobbit such as Bilbo Baggins command three dwarves to do his bidding. Well he commanded (actually rather sternly told sometimes while politely requesting others) two, and the third just simply knew what Bilbo wanted to be done.

And whenever Bilbo caught a look given to his rather odd collection of dwarves that was not polite or courteous, the neighbors had not the backbone to stand up to the Baggins look of severe disapproval and disappointment for acting most unhobbitlike. So everyone knew, quite well enough, to act like the dwarves were just some odd branch of Tookish stock, rather than an entirely different species altogether. And Bilbo did not know that while he silently defended his dwarves, he was accepting in public that they were his and he theirs and really he was very close to being married in the eyes of dwarven people.

And it was over two months into the complicated and extremely subtle dance that was dwarven courting customs that Bilbo came upon one of the last, and most important.

Thorin had Fili sitting on the floor before Bilbo, facing the hobbit while the taciturn smith carefully demonstrated, once again, how to do the specific braid. Bilbo knew that braids could mean a variety of things in dwarven culture, and that at the very least that braids distinguished one family to another. He also could grasp that it was important, because the braids Thorin’s skillfull fingers were showing him how to do, were the braids that he, Fili, and Kili all wore in their hair. He knew that it was their family’s braid, as ancient as their line (which Bilbo did not know how ancient Thorin’s line was, or even what it was called). And when he finally could braid Fili’s hair (then Kili’s) without a single hair out of place, Thorin stood back and eyed him with a look that made him warm from the tips of his ears to the ends of his toes.

“Sit still.” Thorin ordered.

Bilbo obeyed, face turned partially up as Thorin’s fingers went to his curly hair and began to braid. That tiny little clasps, made by Thorin, held them in place and made him look like a most unusual hobbit. When he was done his fingers lingered on the soft pale skin on Bilbo’s cheek, caressing it for a moment before withdrawing his hands. Bilbo’s heart stuttered in his chest, feeling something monumental changing between them. That is until Fili and Kili squished him between them, hugging him tightly.

And he felt it, unspoken, between all the dwarves as the silently settled their claim.

_**Ours** _


	5. In which fluffy porn happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where finally sex happens, though it is probably more suited for HBO than Skinimax.

And it was dark when Bilbo once again made his way to the forge to fetch Thorin.

As was his custom he stood in the entryway for as long as he could, admiring the way Thorin held his hammer, the look of utter concentration as he crafted whatever masterpiece he was making. Bilbo couldn’t decide whether he wanted to let Thorin stay there, sweaty and dirty from hours at the forge, working with such an intensity that it made Bilbo wish he were what Thorin was working on or if he wanted to drag Thorin home and shove him into the bath and clean him of all the dirt and grime and braid his still damp hair.

Then his thoughts muddled and ran away, as they always did, when Thorin finally noticed his presence. There was something different about the dwarf, something that Bilbo could not explain. It was as if a heaviness had come down upon Thorin, greater than usual. It was as if Thorin had seen, somewhere in the fire, his greatest fear and his greatest hate. And somehow he seemed lost in his own emotions, caught in something he could not escape.

“ _Thorin_.” Bilbo whispered, even though it felt like a shout. The smith took a step forward, then another, something wild in his eyes that Bilbo could not name nor understand.

He would have said more, if he could, if there was a way to. Words of comfort or reassurance, of offering an ear to listen to whatever sad tale Bilbo knew Thorin had. He would have said them, really, but he couldn’t.

He could not speak when he was pulled and pushed against a wood and stone wall, lips upon his passionate and beseeching. Thorin kissed him like he needed to drown in Bilbo, that he could drown in Bilbo, because Bilbo was the only thing good and light in his world that kept fire at bay.

Bilbo kissed and held onto Thorin. He wouldn’t let go, ever, he would hold and ground his smith, give him all that he could to fill whatever holes the dwarf had. When they parted, gasping and panting for breath, Bilbo did not back away. He leaned up, pressing his mouth to Thorin’s cheeks and neck, anything he could reach. He met Thorin’s passion with a gentle intensity, with a love that had been building from the first day they met. In the face of what Bilbo offered, with gentle passionate touches, with sweet adoration and trust, Thorin gasped and made a low rough ragged noise that sounded wounded and so full of need that Bilbo had to hold him tighter.

Kisses were exchanged and showered upon each other, rough and needy, slow and passionate. Kisses that tried to mend wounds in each other. When Bilbo’s cloak was taken off, then his shirt, the hobbit couldn’t help but reach up and do the same to Thorin. They each had scars, Bilbo’s fewer, fainter, harder to see in the warm fire’s glow. Thorin’s more obvious, a tale of war and pain etched onto his skin. Pain that Bilbo had to ease, fingers running through this chest hair, lips pressing against scars seen and unseen, healing all he could with his love.

Bilbo tasted the sweat on Thorin’s skin, the soot and ash, and the faint undertones of what made Thorin _Thorin_. Thorin tasted honey on his hobbit’s skin,crisp clean snow, and everything good that made Bilbo unique and lovely. Their hands roamed and learned the dips and plains of each other’s bodies. The strange but erotic differences between them.

Then Thorin made a noise. Of patience ending, a sound of control snapping. And they were naked and Bilbo’s feet no longer on the ground. There was need and urgency in Thorin, but he gentled himself as he prepared his hobbit. As much as he _needed_ he _loved_ so much more. So he endeavored to make it pleasurable, to keep it from hurting unnecessarily. 

And they didn’t care that the snow fell harder outside, or that the wind picked up. They were lost in each other, the heat of each other’s bodies, the slickness of their sweat, the scent and taste of their joining.

And when they came, they came together. In a rush of heat and dizzying pleasure, and ghosts were chased away, smoke cleared, and all that was left was each other.

And if later, when they came back together, with Thorin carrying Bilbo inside Bag End, without even glancing at the dinner table, Fili and Kili ignored it. Far too content to sit with each other and share their meal, then pry into something so private and sacred as what their Uncle was holding at the moment.


	6. The Why's of Forgetfulness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff runs away as the why of Bilbo's forgotten memories are revealed.

Thorin moved into Bilbo’s room after that night. They settled into a life full of domesticity and comfort. The snow fell harder, then it stopped, then slowly it melted away.

And one day, in early spring, with barely any grass on the ground to cover up the mud left by winter a message came. It was a hawke, proud and regal, that waited on Bilbo’s front gate until Fili saw it. The blond dwarf looked at it with trepidation, with wariness, and no small hint of accusation, but he went to it anyway. He took the message and motioned for Kili to come, and Bilbo watched worriedly as they forced their smiles at him but ran to the forge.

Less than ten minutes later three dwarves were in his home and Bilbo saw with the determinedness of Thorin’s gait, and the sorrow in Fili and Kili’s eyes, that they were going away. It was less than an hour later, after they had gathered up all their things, and stood at the door that Bilbo couldn’t find the words to ask what had happened. It wasn’t good, not by the look on any of his dwarves’ faces. And with the way that Thorin’s eyes had shuttered, had closed off, Bilbo knew in that this was _goodbye_ , a goodbye that Thorin had never thought to say.

Bilbo gave Fili and Kili tight hugs and wiped at the tears that _weren’t_ there with a gentle loving smile. He whispered that he loved them, so very much, and that they would always have a place in Bag End.

He kissed Thorin, long and slow, and poured every ounce of his love into the smith. He knew he couldn’t go, that if he asked he’d be denied. It was in the invisible tears in the children’s eyes, and the pained set of Thorin’s mouth. It was in the way Thorin held him, and had to force himself to let go.

And Bilbo Baggins, in less than a year, lost his beloved family twice to things he could not control.

No letter came the following day, or the next. There was not a peep by the end of that week, or the next. Slowly the days began to bleed together, as hope rose with Bilbo each morning, and died each evening at sundown.

He wore the braids in his hair stubbornly, month after month, year after year, until he could no longer deny that no one was coming back. Not after eighteen years of silence and long hours spent on the bench outside his door, staring at the road and praying for familiar figures to walk up the path.

When Bilbo came of age, at the ripe age of 33, his gift to himself was placing the intricate hair clasps in a beautifully carved wooden box, and left on his bedside table. And he no longer was a queer hobbit who braided his hair or talked to strangers. He became more and more respectable, and let more and more of his soul die with every passing minute of the day. He was an ordinary plain little hobbit, he was unremarkable in every way. So why would fate gift him with such things as family and love, no matter how strange and reckless it was. He was unremarkable Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, whose Tookish heart broke and died every day he breathed in the homely quiet air of his hobbit hole. Whose Baggins’ blood took up the pieces of Took left within him and buried them quietly, sheltering the little fragile pieces with respectability and stern hobbitish nature.

And with an anxiety ridden nature, with nervousness, and self doubt now carved into his psyche, he greeted Gandalf the Gray as he would any unwanted stranger who came knocking on his door. Because the Bilbo Baggins who knew Gandalf, who remembered the gray wizard, had been dead for decades now. And the Bilbo Baggins who sat on his bench, facing the road, smoking his pipe out of habit (because even though he knew no one was coming, he waited out of habit, because he knew not what else to do) was not the Bilbo Baggins who knew wizards or dwarves, who loved no one really because he didn’t have enough heart left to love anything save shadowy ghosts of memories.

And when he shut his door, he knew it would hold. Because a dwarven lock was not something to trifle with, even for a wizard. He knew he was safe inside his hobbit hole, because Thorin had made certain his hobbit hole would always be safe. That it would take a quite spectacular show of force for Gandalf to get inside, and Bilbo very much doubted he’d be worth such a display.

He was just a respectable unremarkable bachelor hobbit of hobbiton. He was Bilbo Baggins.


	7. Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo is going quite insane, hallucinating dwarves in his home.

“Fili”

“Kili”

“ _At your service._ ”

“Mr. Boggins.”

And it was getting to be too much. His home, his safe quiet home, that Thorin had intruder proofed, was now being intruded upon. First strangers, now ghosts, and Bilbo couldn’t find joy in his heart at seeing the two boys, his boys, alive and well, and smiling at him like they’d never gone away a’tall. Because his boys were dead, very much so. Silence had taught him that, years of being in his quiet safe hobbit hole had taught him well.

“No! No party at all!” Bilbo spoke breathlessly, trying to fight at the clawing panic and denial, that he was going mad. He had lost his mind and he was dying somehow, because this dream was far too painful and wonderful to be real.

“Wait it’s been canceled?” And Kili looks so heartbroken, not just at the thought of the party being canceled, but that the door was closing. This familiar green door that had always been open was being shut in his face, like he didn’t belong.

It was in the face of that, in the face of the heartbreak in Kili’s face, that had Bilbo’s own heart shattering. It was demolished, what was left, and he found himself denying that anything had been cancelled, knowing full well what it would bring.

Fili and Kili shoved their way inside, depositing their weapons in Bilbo’s arms, like they had a right to. Like Bilbo would go and carefully place it in their room, that still had two beds that were perfectly made and waiting for them. Because there were, two beds, perfectly made, with knitted little animals that Bilbo had made after their departure, in the days when he still had hope. Two almost identical bears, brown for Fili and gold for Kili.

Then his pantry was being demolished, not that it mattered, because this was a hallucination. It had to be. But that wasn’t what mattered, what mattered was that these...these dwarves were being so callous and careless with his things. It didn’t matter that they were cheerful hallucinations. He couldn’t let his things break, not the dishes that he had once shared meals with his family on, not the silverware that Thorin had fixed and sharpened. Not even in dreams could he let those precious things be hurt because things, these trivial useless things were all the reminders he had left of his family who did not exist.

And then....then Thorin showed up. With gray in his hair and a coldness in his countenance that Bilbo could not remember. He stood flummoxed, floundering in emotions that he couldn’t give name to. It was Thorin, but it wasn’t Thorin. His Thorin was a smith, a poor penniless smith. Not....not a king without a kingdom. Not this man made of steel and granite.

Then Thorin was firing questions at him, ridiculous questions that had him wanting to wake up from this horrible twisted dream. He stutted as he replied, following helplessly, getting lost in his emotions and thoughts. He was going to have to talk to Gaffer, to get a healer, because he was going mad.

And things went around him in swirls of half remembered words and thoughts as he began to choke on it all. Thankfully, mercifully, he was given something to read. Yes, reading, that had always calmed him down. He muttered to himself as he read the contract his mind had given him.

“ _Incineration?_ ”

Then a dwarf began to describe it. And it wasn’t himself that he saw going up in flames, imagining horrible things happening to himself was not new and very rarely panic inducing in Bilbo Baggins. He didn’t fear death, not anymore, not when it could bring him back to everyone he had lost.

No he imagined Fili or Kili facing the dragon and turning to ash. Thorin, proud, without the gray in his hair or the coldness in his heart dying as he tried to reclaim his home. And he couldn’t...no.

_No_

He couldn’t lose them again. Not even in this horrible nightmarish fever dream, could he lose them even in his imagination. And with that, with the images of losing what was truly most precious to him to a gaping maw and burning flames, did unremarkable Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, embrace the familiar darkness that came whenever he thought too much of what could have happened to his dwarves, and what did...what truly did happen to cause the death of Belladonna Baggins.

He found himself swallowed whole by nightmares, once again.


	8. The Painful Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo comes to some unsavory and painful realizations but at least he finds a friend in Bofur the Troll Dwarf.

It wasn’t his Tookish nature that sent him scrambling around his tidy hobbit hole searching for what he would probably need for an adventure. It was oddly enough his Baggin’s side that had ruled over that decision. No self respecting Baggins would let their family go into danger alone. Thorin had somehow, someway developed something akin to insanity. That had to be it, because that was the only explanation that Bilbo could come up with for the supposed king under the mountain to let their precious children go after a BLOODY DRAGON.

It didn’t matter that Fili had a beard now, Kili didn’t. They were barely of age! They would do something ridiculous like try to prank the dragon before they had any sort of actual plan, because Fili and Kili never had actual concrete plans. Never. It was obvious that that integral part of them hadn’t changed.

Yet as he ran headlong towards his family, quite aware he was likely going to die in some horribly gruesome manner far before they reached the Lonely Mountain, he thought. Thorin hadn’t recognized him, hadn’t recognized his hobbit hole. He had gotten lost on the way, lost in a place he had lived for months, a place where no new landmarks had appeared, not in the decades that had passed. Thorin hadn’t....he hadn’t forgotten so much as he hadn’t wished to remember. That knowledge made Bilbo stop for a moment. Made his heart clench painfully in his chest as he tried to breathe, tried to remember how to breathe.

Thorin didn’t want to remember their time together. It wasn’t as if they’d forgotten. Fili and Kili obviously remembered, if their calling him ‘Mr. Boggins’ was anything concrete to go by. They remembered, they had been among the first to arrive and had done everything in their power to annoy him, to get him to snap out of whatever insanity had fallen him because obviously he was the insane one for having mental breakdown at having his world shattered.

They were different now. They all were, despite the fact Fili and Kili tried to pretend that they hadn’t. They were princes, Thorin was a king, and Bilbo....Bilbo was just an unremarkable ordinary respectable hobbit. He wasn’t...he couldn’t be a part of their family, a part of the line of _Durin_. Not that the name held as much weight as ‘royalty’ and ‘king’ and Thorin had to carry on the royal line. He had to have heirs, a queen...and...and Thorin had never truly planned to stay in Hobbiton, had he? He’d never planned to stay with Bilbo, and that thought....that knowledge lodged a painful lump in his chest that quite felt like it would kill him. 

He had just been a diversion then? Perhaps...No. He wouldn’t think more on it. He couldn’t because if he did he’d cry, and he couldn’t cry. He had to look....he had to look reckless. He had to look like a Took wanting to go on an adventure, not a Baggins trying desperately to protect his family. If Thorin was well and truly happy with forgetting the entire sordid unseemly affair then Bilbo would too. Because that reckless foolhearty Tookish person was dead, and he really wasn’t doing this for treasure or gold. Not the reasons a Took would really go on an adventure. His Baggin’s side screamed at him to protect his family, that he might not be able to officially be part of it, that he might not ever be able to pretend to know his boys once more like he once had, but he would protect them because he was a Baggins of Bag End.

So he crafted what he hoped to be a suitably excited expression on his face as he began to run once more. He called out and flailed his arms and tried his best to ignore Thorin’s icey stare and Gandalf’s knowing smirk. When he was put up on a pony and he watched as bags of money fly to various dwarves, Bilbo tried his best to not be fondly exasperated when he saw Kili catch a bag while Fili had not. Really that was how they did all bets, one would place money on one outcome and the other the opposite and always split the profits. Really why they’d been allowed to bet at all was beyond him.

So when he sneezed and sneezed again when his allergy to pony hair manifested, Bilbo was almost quite willing to sit it out. That was until he realized, perhaps the best way to protect his family was to...was to be the most utterly useless person to have ever been dragged on an adventure. If they would underestimate him, if they truly ignored him and his worth, then perhaps, he’d be able to use what little unremarkable skills he had to help. Nothing was quite as helpful as the element of surprise, his mother had been fond to say.

“Stop. STOP! We must turn around. I have seemed to forgotten my handkerchief.” It was the most utterly ridiculous thing to ask, the most boring thing he could think of. The look on Thorin’s face, the narrowing of his eyes and the disregard of his worth...it hurt, it hurt so much but the others (well most) took their cue from their leader and forged ahead.

“Here use this!” Bilbo heard the sound of ripping cloth and Bofur threw him a rectangular piece of cloth, that had seen far better days, and far cleanlier days, to use.

“T-Thank you.”

The smile that Bofur threw him, despite having now unintentionally adding far more fuels to Bilbo’s already horrible nightmares, eased the ache in his heart. Perhaps he’d be able to find one friend, a single friend, to share this journey with.

Maybe heading towards his death wouldn’t be such a lonely experience afterall.


	9. Stolen Bears and Stolen Dreams and Many Other Stolen Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bofur begins to realize how very strong their hobbit really is and Bilbo finds a brother

It wasn’t the first night at camp, but close to the fourteenth when Bilbo noticed something completely odd during his watch. It wasn’t that Fili and Kili were sleeping beside each other. That was in and of itself not unusual. Really Bilbo probably wouldn’t have noticed, because he would have been entirely focused on not focusing on the reasons why he had come on this suicidal _adventure_ , if Bofur hadn’t said something.

“What’s that they got?”

The miner dwarf with his adorably floppy hat and charming smile and wicked mind pointed towards Fili and Kili. Bilbo looked at him in confusion, because yes they were sleeping, and they were sleeping next to each other. Then Bofur pointed more clearly towards Fili and Kili’s heads.

He squinted his eyes, focusing not on the bodies but on what they were resting their heads on. Two little bears, well little considering ‘grown’ dwarves were using them as pillows, lay underneath their heads. Fili’s head on a brown one and Kili’s on a golden one.

And Bilbo quite felt his heart break again when he saw them.

“Bears, stuffed bears.”

“Really, you can see them?”

“Well...yes and no...I just know what they are. I made them you see, while my....my children went away on a trip with their...father.” Bilbo’s voice hesitated as he spoke, his eyes trying very hard to water when he didn’t want them to. When he couldn’t afford them to.

“They _stole_ from you? One sec-”

“ _No_.” Bilbo’s hand shot out and grabbed Bofur’s jacket, keeping the dwarf in place not by strength, but by the gentle grip of his hand and the pained way he denied the miner’s wrath. “Just...no Bofur. Let them have them. It’s good to see them being used by someone.”

Bofur settled back down beside Bilbo, his presence warm and comforting. “What happened, to your kids and your husband?”

And it wasn’t wrong, was it? To lean into Bofur’s side, seeking contact and warmth he had...he had missed.

“They died many years ago. I didn’t know it at first...they just never came back. I waited and they...never came back and eventually I just knew I had lost them somewhere, on the long winding road. I made those bears while waiting, when I still had hope, and I think my boys....would be happy to know Fili and Kili had them. They were quite mischievous, my boys.”

An arm, warm and solid wrapped around his shoulders. Comforting, not intrusive, not condescending but understanding. He had known loss, Bofur, they all had.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Bilbo.”

“I am too, Bofur. I am too.”

There was a silence for a long while, neither male quite willing to talk yet.

“Does anyone else know?”

Bofur finally asked, close to when their watch was ending.

“About my family? ….no, I don’t think so. Gandalf wasn’t around when I lost...when I lost my husband and children. He probably doesn’t even know I had them. He left after mother’s funeral and didn’t return until he carved that rune on my door.”

“When did you lose your mother?”

“About half a year...about half a year before I met my husband, and it was just over a year from the day she died that they left. She died in the Fell Winter, you see. It’s when the Brandywine river froze and the White Wolves and....and Orcs came. We would have all died if Gandalf and the Rangers hadn’t come. Gandalf had been very fond of my mother, you see. She was a Took and Tooks are courageous, brave, clever, and full of life and fun. I told him that he should have gone across the water and found a full Took. Not a half Took who is far more Baggins than anything else. I barely even made it to her funeral, no one wants an adventuring partner who can’t even make it on time to their mother’s funeral.”

There was something suspiciously like a kiss placed on his head, a gesture of comfort Bilbo wanted but knew he didn’t deserve. It felt quite like being held by an older brother, though Bilbo didn’t know how that would feel like. Not having a sibling of his own.

“You seem like the timely sort, Master Bilbo. I’m sure you had your reasons.”

“Not good ones. I was just laying in bed, I had only minor scratches but the healers wanted me to stay. I couldn’t do that. She was my mother she...she gave her life for me. She managed to kill three orcs and a wolf, if you could believe it. Some days I don’t, and I was there. That’s a Took for you, always protecting what you love against all the odds.”

Bofur hummed and tightened his hold on Bilbo. “It seems to me, Bilbo, that it wasn’t any of this Took blood that allowed her to do that. It was the fact she was your mother and mothers can take on all sorts of scary monsters when their children are at risk. Look at Bifur, well he’s not my mother but my older brother, he took an axe to the head to save me ‘n Bombur. Ain’t been right ever since, but he did it and survived because he bloody well wasn’t going to let any orc touch his family. Family can do all sorts of amazing things to protect each other. You were...no are a good son. Took blood or baggins blood aside, and I’m quite sure your mother is proud and furious with you for coming on this journey. Perhaps it’s good for you, to get out of the Shire. The road isn’t an easy place, and our desitnation does have a dragon fond of incinaration, but at least our road won’t have the ghosts that keep haunting your home.”

And Bilbo found comfort in Bofur’s words as he curled up smaller and pressed in further to the miner. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t tell, the dwarf that the reason he’d come on this journey at all was to protect the living ghosts of a past that seemed would forever haunt him.

“Perhaps your right.”

“I am right. Now get your bedroll and put it here, no not there, here between Bifur and me. We’ll keep you right safe from any nasties that might creep up on us at night. I won’t tell the others about this, I promise Bilbo. Wouldn’t want them poking and prying and meddling and trying to weasle out all the details when it’s only right you give them when you want to and not a moment before. Now settle down like a good hobbit while I go wake up the next watch.”

And as Bilbo curled up, with Bifur’s sleeping face before him and the empty space behind that would soon hold Bofur. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit of tension, a little bit of pain, easing now that he had someone....someone to talk to. Someone who would listen.

And when Bofur’s arm ‘accidentally’ found it’s way around Bilbo, the hobbit couldn’t find it in him to push it off. He accepted the weight, and the unspoken brother affection and protection that came with it and drifted off into a fretful sleep.


	10. Squirrels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo is a bit tired and Tookish (to make you guys smile before the angst returns)

The first thing that woke Bilbo up wasn’t the fact that he was surprisingly warm and comfortable and half sprawled on top of an unconscious Bofur who was holding him tightly. He was being watched. The knowledge that had driven his mind from sleeping to tense wakefulness was that he was being watched, very very intensely. And despite the warmth that Bofur provided and the comfort, Bilbo could feel the temperature dropping every half second that he was laying there.

Lifting his head carefully, eyes glancing around the camp to see what sort of horrifically malevolent creature was watching him, all he found at first was a squirrel. Squirrels were not usually known for the capacity towards evil, let alone sleep disrupting stares. Certainly Gaffer would go on a long laundry list on how squirrels were in fact quite evil and perhaps the source of all misfortune in all of Middle Earth. But Gaffer usually changed the animal depending on what had potentially disrupted the crotchety’s hobbit’s garden rather than actual concrete evidence. And Bilbo was not quite awake enough to not think _Well perhaps there is something to Gaffer’s grievances afterall_ and _How can I wake up Bofur and alert him to the squirrel of Sauron?_ Before reason began to kick in....and the fact that the feeling of being watched didn’t vanish even when the squirrel squeaked in terror and ran quite quickly towards the trees.

So it wasn’t the squirrel. Which made far more sense and was now starting to terrify the halfling. His eyes continued the search, trying desperately to find what wished him harm.

Then his own unremarkable half terrified half sleep filled eyes met stormy blue ones and it clicked into place. _Thorin_ was staring at him with a look usually reserved for...for...well Smaug. Looking down at his arm he didn’t find any scales sprouting from his skin, so looking back up all he could do was raise one single eyebrow in question. Because it was still far too early for him to have even done anything remotely purposefully wrong to instigate Thorin’s ire.

When all he received was an even more furious glare and what could amount to a growl, Bilbo huffed. Unimpressed and unamused Bilbo broke his gaze away, placed his head back down on Bofur and was content to try and go back to sleep and gain the two or so more precious hours of sleep. The growl turned into a snarl and Bilbo quite boldly, lifted his hand and waved it at their esteemed and kingly leader in a manner best interpreted as ‘shut up’. Whatever was bothering Thorin Bilbo didn’t care (well he did, he really did, but he hadn’t slept in so long. So so long and it was the first time in years that he had found such a precious wonderful thing as a restful sleep). So when his hand came back down, he fisted it in Bofur’s jacket snuggled further into the almost catatonic dwarf and took his unremarkable and very average mind and found unconsciousness once more.


	11. TROLLS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, need I say more?

The next day brought about what amounted to be a day of utter infamy. 

Thorin for all his diplomatic skill managed to infuriate Gandalf to the point of leaving. Bilbo could understand Gandalf’s ire, truly, because Thorin could infuriate a rock when he had half a mind to. He wished he could openly sympathize with the wizard, but the wizard had gone far too quickly for Bilbo to follow and as such was left with a surly dwarf and his many companions.

At least Bofur was there with him, and Bifur too. The two brothers stuck close to the hobbit, though Bilbo was fairly certain that Bifur was only there because Bofur was and not because the death defying toymaker had a particular fondness for hobbits.

It was easy to spend time with Bofur and Bifur, Bombur close to the fire and working on dinner for all. bilbo spoke, quietly, of happy things, of good things that would chase away Bofur’s memory of what had been shared the night before. It wouldn’t, not really, but it was good to remind himself of happy things. Like the time he met his children, covered in mud and honey on the road. Bofur laughed, choking a bit on air as he looked at their burglar.

“Gandalf was right to get you Bilbo. You’re a very good burglar, stealing two children in the middle of daylight right to your home without anyone the wiser.”

“I didn’t steal them Bofur! It’s quite acceptable in the Shire if a child’s parent isn’t around to take them home to watch them until a relative is free if mischief is being had.” Bilbo refuted Bofur’s claim of stealing. He hadn’t stolen Fili or Kili! He had...he had borrowed them at worst. It wasn’t like Bilbo was intending to keep them. Which he incidentally had, but at the time he had no intention of stealing or keeping.

But their conversation was interrupted as Bombur called Bofur over and Bofur then handed Bilbo two bowls of soup. “Take these to Fili and Kili.” And before he could protest or try to find a way out of spending time with the two reasons he had come on this _adventure_ he was shoved away and no one else friendly enough to rescue him. So he sighed and steeled himself, marching towards where the ponies and his sons were.

When he arrived he knew something was wrong. Not because he counted the ponies, but because he knew that look on the boys. The one that told him that somehow they had landed themselves in a very deep hole and they could find no way to climb out of it.

“ _Uh-oh_.”

An inarticulate sound made itself known in his mind when he heard the boys say that phrase. No throat could make it and it was best described as a long unintelligible scribble on a piece of writing parchment. It was a noise of frustration of thoughts that came to a screeching halt, because his children had managed to find themselves in _trouble_ that he, being the responsible respectable parent that he was (ignoring the fact he was technically their Uncle, if he was actually a part of the Durin line. Which he _wasn’t_ ), was going to have to find a way to get them out of before Thorin took their hides and displayed as a trophy of some sort.

“What’s the problem?”

“Well you see-”

“-there were sixteen ponies-”

“-and now there are fourteen. Mr. Boggins, sir.”

And oh if Bilbo didn’t want to smack Kili and Fili. How could they lose two ponies? Two ponies that had been tied up only moments before. And then they were dragging him off, without even remembering their supper, towards some ridiculous fire.

And he had forgotten, how if he didn’t watch himself, he could wind up in the middle of Fili and Kili’s mischief. Really he should just turn around go back to the others and tell them they had a bit of a troll problem. But they had Myrtle. Sweet dear Myrtle, who he had fed apples to, who before Bofur had extended his hand in friendship had been his only comfort. She didn’t deserve to be eaten by Trolls. It wasn’t right, no sir, his Baggins and Took sides agreed. He would just have to save her, because if he didn’t, then likely no one would try to save poor Myrtle before she could get eaten.

He was sneaky, or tried to be, even when he found human bones and touched them, and when he realized his clever fingers weren’t going to be clever enough to undo the rough rope. Nothing for it, try to test out Gandalf’s theory about being a burglar.

It was after he found himself covered in troll snot, looking up at the horrified faces of the trolls that Bilbo Baggins was going to kill a wizard. He was going to find a way, even if it was horribly obscure and difficult, to kill a wizard. Gandalf to be exact, because it was Gandalf’s fault he was covered in troll snot.

“It has arms and legs and everything!” The distress troll cried out.

_Thank you, thank you so very much for that wonderful observation. Indeed I do have arms and legs and ‘everything’. I am also clearly not from your nose. You must have been the brightest student in you troll class you very special snowflake._ Bilbo’s Tookish side replied, quietly, seethingly, and very very sarcastically in Bilbo’s mind.

“What are you an oversized squirrel?”

“No, I’m a burglaaaa-hobbit. _Hobbit_ ” Bilbo emphasized, because he was not a buglar oh no. He was cute and tiny and not edible and not a fluffy tailed tree rodent. He really should be more Bagginsish but the quiet respectable Baggins blood had curled up in a fetal position in his mind crying over the fact he was about to die while being covered in troll snot. So the Took took over.

And he tried to escape, and nearly did. But he was caught.

“Are there any more of you buglarhobbits?”

“What? _No_ ”

“He’s lying.”

“No! No I’m not.” _They will not get them. They will NOT touch my family. By the Valar I will kill them if they touch my sons. NO ONE IS GOING TO TOUCH MY BOYS._ The Baggins in him cried while the Took heartily cheered on. He might die covered in troll snot, but his stupid mischevious boys were not going to be troll dinner.

“ _RAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH_!”

Bilbo knew that cry. It was usually given right before Kili launched himself at Fili when they had one of their biweekly fights as children. Except it was angrier and there was the sound, the distinct sound of metal hitting flesh.

“ _ **DROP HIM**_ ”

Bilbo was going to kill Kili. Yup, he was going to have to murder his son because Kili obviously DID NOT WANT TO LIVE.

“You and what army?”

“I said: _Drop. Him._ ”

Bilbo felt the distinct and fairly foreign sensation of being thrown. He braced for impact on the ground, but found, instead, he was caught by Kili. It took less than a second later, an intake of breath really because Kili was going to be _scolded_ for his recklessness and he certainly didn’t get that from Bilbo’s side of the family because they certainly weren’t related. At all, what so ever. Then war cries surrounded him as Thorin and the others crashed through the foliage.

“ _You are in so much trouble young man._ ” Bilbo hissed at Kili, watching his eyes widen in surprise before the trolls caught his attention. Then he was plowing back into the fight and Bilbo remembered the ponies. He could kill his son later, saving the ponies was a higher (and more feasible than fighting trolls weaponless) priority.

And he found the knife he’d been trying to steal earlier and cut the rope. He was distracted, only for a moment really, as he got the ponies moving. He found himself lifted into the air his limbs stretched awkwardly.

“ _BILBO!_ ” Kili’s horrified cry and step forward was stopped by Thorin’s staying hand. _Good sensible Thorin, yes let the trolls rip off my limbs and keep fighting them and get out of here alive. No, no, no what are you doing!? PICK THAT WEAPON BACK UP YOU IDIOTIC SMITH! DID I MARRY INTO A LINE OF IDIOTS?_ Bilbo’s inner thoughts weren’t translated on his face, nor did he find the breath or tongue to say them out loud. Not because he wanted to live, no, because his Tookish fury had overloaded the synapses of his brain.

He lay broken by the force of his own anger while they were trussed up in bags. It took a moment, or perhaps ten, before he shook out of his red haze and assessed the situation. Trolls, trolls, what could he do to defeat them? Not much, weaponless, tied up in a bag. But then, no.....no...dawn. Dawn could defeat the trolls for them.

“Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! Yes, well _I_ know the secret to cooking dwarves.”

Bilbo managed to get up and hop towards the trolls.

It took a few moments to convince them that he knew something.

“Well what is it?”

“The secret to cooking dwarves is to...” _Oh I am going to skin Thorin Oakenshield alive when this is done bringing my sons on this fool adventure_ “skin them first!” _NONONONONONONO_

“ _ **WHAT!?!!?**_ ”

Bilbo ignored the bites to his ankle, more preoccupied with watching the little flash of gray go by.

“There’s nothing wrong with raw dwarf. Nice and crunchy.”

“NO! Don’t eat that one!” Bilbo was brought back, his eyes now on a terrified Bombur.

The troll got uncomfortably close. “Why not?”

“Because he’s.... _infected_.” Bilbo grasped at his thoughts.

“He’s got what?”

“Worms! I-in his _tubes_.” Bilbo felt a small flash of satisfaction at finding something to satisfactorily distract the trolls. “In fact they all have them! _Infested_ with parasites. They all have them, terrible business really. I wouldn’t risk it. I _really_ wouldn’t.”

“Did he say we have parasites?”

“WE DON’T HAVE PARASITES!” Kili yelled, with no small amount of hobbitish indignation at being called _dirty_. “YOU HAVE PARASITES!”

_Of all the things to have stuck, it **had** to be the cleanliness._ Bilbo thought to himself. If he could hop over to kick Kili then he would have. But a not so silent ‘thwap’ told him someone realized what he was doing.

There was a pause where the dwarves understood what Bilbo was doing.

“I’ve got parasites as big as my arm!”

“I’VE GOT THE BIGGEST PARASITES! MINE ARE HUGE!” 

“We’re riddled!”

“Yes riddled!”

“What would you have us do? Just let them go?”

Bilbo couldn’t help the hope that maybe he had gotten them free. He nodded a ‘yes-well maybe, for you own protection’. His Tookish side reared up when he was denied, the Baggins right on its heels. Those trolls were still going to have to go through him to get to his children!

“-the dawn take you!”

Good old Gandalf, maybe Bilbo wasn’t going to have to kill the wizard after all. Splitting the rock almost made up for getting him covered in troll snot.... _almost_.

When the others went towards the cave, Bilbo, free of his sack, rounded on Fili and Kili. Two hands, quick as they ever were despite the fact he was older now, grabbed their ears and dragged them down.

“ _You nearly got yourselves killed!_ ” Bilbo whispered furiously. The princes tried to break away but Bilbo kept his grip firm. “The intelligent thing would have been to let them eat me while you went on your merry way towards your desired death by flambe ala Smaug. Kili! Trying to take on three trolls does not prove your battle proweress! Fili! _Biting_ my ankles while I was trying to distract the trolls did not help me at all in trying to save your skins. And it is your fault we got in that mess in the first place, sending me in there unarmed. You could have at least lent me a knife! I am not going to tell Thorin about this true reason of this mishap, but if you want to escape a spanking you both better start thinking correctly about your own safety. Have I made my self **clear** ?”

_“Yes! Yes! Yes!” The brothers cried out in unison._

“ _Good_ Now you can happily lay the blame for nearly being eaten by trolls at my feet.” Because by the Valar he was going to protect his sons, even if it meant becoming even further at the up the shit list Thorin kept ever present on his mind. Letting go of their ears he turned away, walking straight for the side of the entrance to the foul smelling troll cave. 


	12. A Night In the Last Homely House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares and promises kept

There was blood. Blood everywhere. He could smell it, breathe it, taste it. By the Valar it _hurt_ , he could feel the distinct sticky wetness coming from him, but worse....so much worse.

_Mother_

They were dead, the orcs and the wolf. They were dead but so was she, he could tell it. And these were scratches really, because she was dead, his beautiful wonderful full of life mother was _dead_. He slipped and slid, so weak, too weak, as he half fell into the dirty spot next to his mother. The once white snow red and black, dirty, marred, tainted.

“Mother, mother _please_.”

His voice was sort of high, breathless, and on the edge of panic. Probably his hands would be better spent pressing against his own wounds, but she was....she had been....all that he’d had left.

So he pulled her up, pulled her into his arms and held her, shaking and hurt in the snow, rocking back and forth as he tried to thinking of something to say beyond desperate pleas that could not be heard.

_Bilbo! Bilbo wake up! It’s a dream._

It was the hands on his shoulders, shaking him roughly from his dream that woke Bilbo Baggins from his nightmare. Tears had wet his face, the ghosts of injuries long past ached as if they were new, his breathing was labored. As if he’d just run from a pack of wargs. Which he had, in fact. Just the other day.

“You were....you were crying out.”

Fili and Kili sat on his bed, flanking him on either side. They looked young, and frightened, and worried about Bilbo. It wasn’t seemly for a parent to be so...so wrecked in front of their children. Bilbo scrubbed his hands over his face.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you boys. You can go back to your room, I likely won’t be going back to sleep.”

That did nothing to reassure the boys. In fact it seemed to solidify some resolve in them. And soon Bilbo found himself back on his back, a dwarf on either side.

“No-”

“-we can stay here-

“-for a little while. Mr. Boggins.”

And while it wasn’t phrased as a question, Bilbo knew it was. Patting Fili’s golden head while Kili buried his face into Bilbo’s neck the hobbit couldn’t turn them away. And the fact he did not turn them away settled the matter quite easily. And really it was nice to have warm bodies close to him, familiar scents of his children.

It was quiet for some time and Bilbo almost found himself drifting back off into sleep when Kili finally spoke up.

“Bofur said we were dead.”

That took away some of the peace in Bilbo’s mind.

“Talking to Gandalf, more like asking him if there was a way-”

“-for him to find-”

“-where our bodies were.”

Bilbo didn’t want to have this conversation. In fact, if he could have avoided this conversation the entire journey would be so much easier. He had just wanted to protect Fili and Kili (and maybe Thorin, but Thorin was still fairly high on Bilbo’s shit list. Bringing their children on this _adventure_.) not resolve issues that had been buried for decades now.

“We’re not dead!”

“No, you’re not. But I thought you were.” Bilbo said tiredly.

“If you thought we were dead-”

“-then why would you keep our rooms?”

“With our-”

“-favorite blankets on the bed.”

“And the bears waiting for us?”

And how could he explain to his children that when he realized that they were dead. When he had come to the conclusion that no one was returning to Bag End. That he’d have to rewrite his will, to put Bag End in the name of his Took cousins, so the Sackville-Bagginses could have no claim on what had originally been deemed as Fili and Kili’s inheritance. That he had to make legal measures so the Sackville-Bagginses couldn’t argue that Bilbo’s dwarves hadn’t been seen in the Shire for 35 years so therefore couldn’t actually have Bag End and all its belongings. That when he’d realized what he’d had to do, that the will just left him. That he couldn’t find it in him to change their beds, to convert the room once more to just a place for guests. That he couldn’t take the blankets away or move the bears. He couldn’t go into the room at all, not without weeping. So he had closed the door, not able to lock it, because locking it away would be as unbearable as dismantling the room, and just did his best to exist with it there.

It wasn’t like he had many guests since their absence anyway.

How could a parent explain a grief like that to their child? Even their grown ones, who really weren’t so grown afterall.

There weren’t words for it, not really. Not in any way that he could phrase it that wouldn’t be inappropriate to place on his children. Because they had something bright and wonderful inside them, hope and a future. A good future, if Bilbo had any say on the matter. He couldn’t taint that, he couldn’t hurt them.

“Because it was, and always will be, your room. I told you that I’d never go through your rooms if you kept them cleans...and it was clean when you left so...I kept my promise.”

There was silence while the words sunk in to the brothers. When they began to grasp, somewhat, not nearly as much as what Bilbo had truly felt the long lonely years, he could feel them hold onto him tighter.

“Braid our hair.”

Fili whispered, Kili’s mouth had found it’s way to Bilbo’s shirt where his teeth were clenched in the fabric.

“It’s already braided and an ungodly hour of the morning.” Bilbo pointed out exhaustedly.

“We’ll bathe, we’ll wash our hair and when it’s done you braid it. We won’t wear them, not unless you put them in. We can wait, but promise us. _Promise_ that you’ll braid our hair.” Fili insisted. And really, who was he to ignore the plea in Fili’s voice? A bad parent, and Bagginses (as well as Tooks) were not bad parents.

“I promise. Tomorrow, after you bathe, that I Bilbo Baggins will braid your hair.”

And some tension bled out from Fili and Kili, though they didn’t move away. No, they were planted on either side of him, and Bilbo was quite certain that they weren’t going to move. And really, what better place for them to be than right here? On either side of him, where he could be close at hand and be better able to keep them from mischief.

And with that the Durins (and one not Durin, but it was just easier to think of them all as Durins for the moment) finally found a way to go back to sleep in the Last Homely House.


	13. Out of the Frying Pan and Into The Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo snaps and Gloin tries to offer marriage advice.

“He’s been lost ever since he left home.”

Thorin’s words made something quietly snap in Bilbo’s head and heart. Not that anyone else could hear it, though Fili and Kili (as well as Bofur, Bifur, and Bombur) looked quite uneasy at the look on Bilbo’s bedraggled face.

Home was not a hobbit hole in the shire, with a warm fire place and comfortable chairs. Home was not a soft bed with soft blankets, with six hearty meals a day. It was a nice place and it had been home, once, long ago. It had been home when his mother sang off key in the kitchen while his father quietly sat and read and smiled ever so slightly at his wife and child. Home was with two rascal children making mischief and making a meal while singing in the kitchen waiting for his smith to come home. Home was in three sets of strong arms wrapping around him and never wanting to let him go. Home was with Bofur’s silly smile, Bifur’s khuzudul, and Bombur’s cheerful chatter over a cookfire. Home was sitting with Ori, knitting together, as they prepared scarves for the others to use when it got colder. Home was Dwalin’s ridiculous paranoia and Balin’s calm cheerfulness. Home was with people and love and fondness, not places.

It settled it, really. His husband well and truly did not wish his presence to mar his ridiculous quest. His husband didn’t want him to be with people, with family, with a real home. No, Thorin wanted him in an empty sort of self made prison, as comfortable as it was lonely.

He didn’t truly mean to snap at Bofur. Though Bofur understood him, somehow, anyway. He was quite ready to walk right back out into the torrential rain when Bofur called his attention to something.

“What’s that?”

And really Bilbo shouldn’t have looked. Because looking meant he saw the blue light coming from his hobbit sized sword (and likely fancy toothpick to everyone else) something dropped in his stomach. He opened his mouth, really, to say what it was. But panic had closed his throat and apparently Thorin was awake afterall.

“Goblins, EVERYONE UP!”

And then it was a jumble of sensations and dark colors. He fell into the deep dark with everyone else.

And all he could think of was: _at least I’m not covered in troll snot_.

It didn’t get better from there, being man handled by goblins. Then falling further into the dark, finding a ring, and getting into a game of riddles with a creature that defied all description. It was long and painful and eventually he was led out, through equal parts cleverness and sheer dumb luck.

“WHERE IS OUR HOBBIT?”

It was Gandalf’s voice, loud and ringing with fear and concern. Bilbo quite wanted to go up to the kindly old wizard.

There was an argument that commenced, as Gandalf tried to find out exactly who had seen him last.

“I can tell you what happened. He slipped away when he had the chance. He’s thought of nothing except his soft bed and warmth hearth since he stepped out his front door. We’ll never see our hobbit again.”

Bilbo felt hurt lance through him with every word. Well yes he had been in the process of leaving before they’d fallen into the caves. And he hadn’t been thinking of soft warm things, he’d been thinking of cold lonely never ending things.

But Fili and Kili looked so distraught, as well as more than half the company.

“No, no you’re wrong.”

He spoke as he slipped the ring off. To see the overjoyed look on Fili and Kili’s faces, to see Bombur and Bofur share a happy glance while Bifur looked ready to hit him (which for Bifur meant, that he would be hit, but it’d quite be like being tackled by his sons in affection).

Bilbo dodged the questions of how as best he could. That is until Thorin, hard and rough, angry and defensive came forward.

“It matters. Why did you come back?”

Bilbo paused as he stared at Thorin. _Because I love you. Because I would rather die than live a hundred more years in my hobbit hole without my family. Because someone needs to look after our boys. Because Ori needs someone to knit with. Because Bofur needs someone to make fun of. Because...just because._

Except Thorin didn’t want him to acknowledge what had once been. So using skills he had honed by dealing with Sackville-Bagginses he took a breath.

“I know you doubt me. I-I know you always have. And you’re right, I often think of Bag End.” _When it had you and our boys, when I knew I’d see you every night._ “I miss my books.” _I still have the ones you bought me, the maps too. I read through them almost every night._ “And my armchair.” _Because I’d get to sit in it and listen to you talk about how unsuitable my hole was as you fixed every lock and latch in the place to make it safe._ “And my garden.” _Because you loved it when I’d pick flowers and braid them into Fili and Kili’s hair, or used the vegetable and herbs in cooking. You laughed when Fili and Kili told you what they’d learned about the earth, and tilling it, for me trying to turn dwarves into hobbits._ “You see that’s where I belong. That’s home and that’s why I came back. You don’t have one. A home.” _My home wasn’t enough for you, it never was. I wasn’t enough for you. You needed Erebor._ “It was taken from you. And I will help you take it back, any way I can.” _Because I love you, you stupid man. Because I love our sons. Because I love this Company._

The company looked at him, sad and hopeful. Really it was the right thing to do, his Baggins blood told him. His Took side agreed, that it was right and that they were going to have to kill the dragon for putting such pained looks on his dwarves faces.

A horrifying how echoed in the distance.

Then they were running, escaping from wargs and orcs. Really a perfect end to a day. Except it wasn’t, the end. They were cornered and surrounded by fire and confronted with a pale orc called ‘Azog the Defiler’ (and really what sort of respectable mother would want their child to be dubbed ‘the defiler’. Bilbo was quite certain that the hook handed orc had crushed his mother’s heart....probably quite literally from the looks of him). Really Bilbo thought it couldn’t get worse from there, clinging to a tree, waiting to fall or be eaten. Except it got worse.

Thorin was up and running headlong into death. Bilbo froze, not quite certain of what he was seeing. Really this was a nightmare, watching Thorin being used as a chew toy.

It wasn’t bravery that moved Bilbo up from his spot on the tree. It was pure unadulterated hobbit fury and homicidal intent. Oh no. NONONO! If anyone was going to kill his suicidal husband it was going to be Bilbo Baggins, not this Azog the Defiler. With a most ungentlehobbit growl he could muster Bilbo launched himself at the orc that was supposed to behead Thorin, son of Thrain, King under the Mountain. Bilbo killed the orc that had almost killed his husband...ex husband? IT DID NOT MATTER THE CURRENT STATUS OF THEIR MARRIAGE. The halfling had planted himself quite firmly in front between Thorin and Azog holding his glowing sword in his hand (letter opener, though really why the ancient elves would enchant their letter openers to respond to orcs baffled Bilbo) ready to stab anything that came close enough to try and harm his idiot husband.

Bilbo didn’t have to go and kill Azog himself, he didn’t have time to, being saved by the eagles. Fury and fear warred within him when he watched Thorin’s limp body being cradled in the eagle’s talon. If Thorin died Bilbo was going to have to kill him. Bilbo was going to kill him. Thorin, son of Thrain, was not so much King Under the Mountain as much as King of Idiot and Suicidal Dwarves.

They were let down, Bilbo was grateful for solid earth under his feet as he watched Gandalf pull Thorin back from death. Then he heard it, from Thorin’s lips. “The halfling?”

There was a loud snap as Bilbo’s control finally snapped. Or perhaps it was a twig underfoot, either way Fili and Kili shrunk back and held each other as they saw the look on Bilbo’s face.

“YOU IDIOT!” The dwarves in the company flinched at the tone of Bilbo’s voice. They’d never (not even Fili and Kili) heard Bilbo so utterly enraged before. “YOU COULD HAVE DIED! IF YOU HAD DIED I WOULD HAVE HAD TO KILL YOU! YOU! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE! DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU. ARE. NOT. ALLOWED. TO. DIE." Bilbo's hands moved as he screamed at the king. 

"BOFUR TOLD ME WHAT YOU DID! BOFUR EXPLAINED BECAUSE IT APPARENTLY SLIPPED YOU KINGLY MIND THAT YOU MARRIED ME! YOU. MARRIED. ME. I AM APPARENTLY QUEEN-" 

"Consort Master Bilbo." Bofur interrupted sheepishly. The miner hadn’t known, not really, the full reason as to why Bilbo quietly had asked about dwarven courting rituals. Some things were beginning to click into place though. Enough had to at least be able to correct the hobbit on the proper status that he would hold should he had been married to Thorin...except it wasn’t a possibility of maybe but more, it seemed, like fact.

"Oh yes sorry Bofur... I AM CONSORT UNDER THE MOUNTAIN! THAT MEANS I WOULD HAVE HAD TO RULE YOUR BLOODY MOUNTAIN AFTER WE TOOK CARE OF THE DRAGON AFTER YOU DIED UNTIL FILI ACTUALLY CAME OF TRUE DWARVEN AGE! AGGGGGGHHH DWARVES I AM SICK OF DWARVES NO DWARVES ARE ALLOWED WITHIN A FIVE FOOT RADIUS OF ME UNTIL I HAVE REGAINED MY SANITY OR YOUR KING HIS BRAINS."

The dwarves, even the ones who were quite sure Bilbo couldn’t harm a fly if he wanted to scrambled back at the order. Gandalf stayed by Thorin’s side, smirking into his beard as he kept tending to the king’s wounds.

“But you took your braids out.” Thorin replied. Gloin put his face in his hand, really their king was a wonderful man, but he...well he obviously didn’t know how to treat the missus. If Bilbo’s fury was any indication.

“OH _YES_ MY _BRAIDS_.” Bilbo shouted, his hands waving for emphasis. “YOU SAID THAT BRAIDING MY HAIR MEANT I WAS PART OF THE FAMILY NOT _BY THE WAY I JUST MARRIED YOU_. THERE WAS A DISTINCT THREE MONTH PERIOD BETWEEN THE TIME YOU WED ME TO THE TIME YOU LEFT! CERTAINLY YOU COULD HAVE FOUND THE TIME DURING DINNER TO SLIP THAT ONE OUT! PERHAPS WHEN YOU WERE FUCKING ME INTO THE MATTRESS OR BRAIDING MY HAIR IN THE MORNING? 'Oh by the way Bilbo we're now legally _**married**_ in dwarven culture' THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A LOVELY TIDBIT OF INFORMATION TO HAVE!"

Fili and Kili were caught between laughter and fear, making horrible choking wheezing noises as they watched Bilbo rounding on Thorin.

“ARE THERE ANY OTHER IMPORTANT PIECES OF INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN TO TELL ME? AM I GOING TO ONE DAY SUDDENLY WIND UP PREGNANT BECAUSE YOU FORGOT TO TELL ME SOME WEIRD DWARVEN ABILITY TO IMPREGNANT ANYTHING INCLUDING MEN AND THAT IS WHY YOU ALL HAVE BEARDS! BECAUSE I WAS QUITE TEMPTED TO PERHAPS FORGIVE YOU BUT RIGHT NOW I WANT TO KILL YOU FOR BEING KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN OF STUPID! IF YOU MANAGE TO NOT DIE DURING THE NIGHT WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS!"

Thorin made a noise, perhaps in protest or pain. His mouth opened for some rebuttal, for a reply but Gloin cut him off.

“DON’T SAY ANYTHING LADDIE! JUST BE QUIET AND APOLOGIZE IN THE MORNING WITH FLOWERS! THE MISSUS WILL START THROWING THINGS AT YOU!”

Fili and Kili held onto each other, shaking with amusement. Their eyes wide, thanking the Valar that they hadn’t actually been the ones scolded. Bofur was trying so hard not to laugh while Bifur was making complicated hand gestures at Bombur and grunting in khuzudul.

Gloin interpreting what Bifur was saying took in another deep breath. “BIFUR IS ALSO OFFERING UP BOMBUR’S SERVICES TO HELP YOU MAKE BREAKFAST! TAKE THEM MASTER OAKENSHIELD! YOU’RE GOING TO NEED ALL THE HELP YOU CAN GET TO GET OUT OF THIS ONE WITH ALL YOUR BITS WORKING!”

Fili and Kili lost it, howling with laughter because they could. Bilbo, at the edge of camp, still quietly thrumming with Tookish rage fell asleep, hours later, to the occasional giggles still erupting from his sons.


	14. Beginning to Mend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gandalf is very meddlesome

The next morning Bilbo awoke to Gandalf staring at him.

“Come with me, Master Baggins. I think we need to have a talk, hmmm?”

And really Bilbo would have liked not to have a talk with the wizard. He wanted to go over to Thorin, make sure he was still breathing, and then hit him upside the head. But it was just before dawn and all the dwarves still abed and deep in their slumber.

Exhaustion had seeped into Bilbo’s bones, aches and bruises that he hadn’t been aware of last night troubled him now. He was quite certain he had been bleeding at one point, could feel the uncomfortable feel of dried blood on his skin, but chose to ignore where it really was or when it had happened. He had been quite preoccupied with the previous day’s events and his own Tookish fury over his husband’s suicidal insanity.

They came to a place far enough away that their conversation could not be overheard, but quite close enough if trouble decided to find them.

Gandalf found a place to sit, bringing out his pipe and motioned for Bilbo to settle himself.

“Before we came to Rivendell I had been approached by Bofur on your behalf. Granted he did not use your name but instead, unsubtle as ever I might add, he spoke of how one went about finding a travelling hobbit and his children’s bodies. Where hobbit settlements might be and what sort of situations would cause for a hobbit to run off with little explanation to his life partner. He had heard a sad tale about a hobbit losing his lover and children and that the surviving hobbit knew they were dead but had no way of finding out where the bodies were to give them a proper burial. It was a tale that had upset Fili and Kili, as they eavesdropped. In fact they looked quite ready to fall into a panic or be ill, not that Bofur noticed as he was focused on me and my answers.”

Bilbo shifted uncomfortably as Gandalf spoke. He couldn’t quite look the wizard in the eye.

“I wasn’t concerned then. It was no secret that Fili and Kili are quite fond of you and to hear you had lost something so precious no doubtedly would upset them. I was worried about you though, hobbits do not take losing loved ones well. In fact it explained quite succiently how you had ‘forgotten’ me despite how memorable I am. It explained to me why you were so very different from the Tookish hobbit I remembered and why you were so protective of your things despite the fact they were just _things_. I have to say you had Bofur and I quite fooled for a while as to the nature of your ‘husband’. It was only when you began to ask about dwarven courting customs that Bofur put together that perhaps your lover and children had not been hobbits at all. I only found out because he came to me to ask of how Shire folk would react to such a pair.”

Gandalf chewed the end of his pipe for a moment. Letting his words sink in and trying to find the right ones .

“Then I thought back. There wasn’t much of a chance for dwarves to come to the Shire without my knowledge, let alone Hobbiton. There is only one time I can remember being aware of their presence and that was when I requested that a skilled warrior be sent there to serve as a hidden protector to help should wolves and orcs come again. The dwarves assured me they sent one of their best and even sent him with children to make his presence less intimidating.”

Bilbo felt his hands clenching into the cloth of his ruined vest. He had always wondered why Thorin had come to _Hobbiton_. Sure there had been other, better, places for the dwarven smith to work. He could certainly see the appeal of the Shire from a parenting standpoint, but there had been little to offer in the ways of gold and honor (two things held dear to dwarves). The fact that Thorin had shown up right after the Fell Winter...Bilbo hadn’t truly thought of it in any depth other than he had been glad for Thorin’s presence in the cold months where the memories of the horrors they’d faced just the year before were fresh in his mind. That the nightmares of blood and orc screams were easier to bear with the smith by his side.

“Bilbo, I did not know they sent _Thorin_ to the Shire.” There was an apologetic tone in the wizard’s voice. “I was trying to protect you all. It wasn’t just chill or chance that had sent the orcs to your doorstep. I couldn’t stay and neither could the rangers, we had to focus on investigating the source to try and stop another Fell Winter happening...”

“T-that answers some questions I had.” Bilbo stuttered out, feeling something move in him. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or pain. Perhaps some queer mix of the two that had no name.

“But it answers none of the questions _I_ have.” Gandalf said, the regret in his voice now becoming tinged with something akin to annoyance. “If I had known, Bilbo Baggins, that you were a ‘widower’ I would not have placed that mark on your door! Adventures can do many a world of good but they can also be quite daunting. We’re lucky that Thorin, Fili, and Kili are alive or else we’d have lost you. I know of the Fading, Master Baggins. You hobbits share that unfortunate trait with the elves, the fact you withstood it and didn’t succumb is a testament to your strength. What of your companions though? How would they have coped after some horrible fight or traumatic event you went to sleep and never woke up?”

Bilbo straightened up, his eyes narrowing on the wizard’s face. “Well excuse me for not wanting to talk about my current state of sanity with a man who I hadn’t seen for thirty six years. When I had a house full of dwarves I thought I had gone completely mad and I am not about to discuss with hallucinations and nightmares how they’re making me _feel_.”

Bilbo felt his temper rising and it wasn’t just his Tookish side that was beginning to get offended.

“When I realized that I had not hallucinated wizards and dwarves in my house, that my _children_ were going on some suicidal _adventure_ that would likely end in _incineration_ , I could not sit in Bag End. Tooks are all for adventures of any nature for any reason, but Bagginses value one thing far more than respectability and that is family. I didn’t want to come but I cannot and will not leave my children.”

“Do they know?”

“Do they know what?” Bilbo snapped, irritated his rant had been mostly ignored.

“How old you were.” The wizard clarified with an equally testy tone.

“Thorin knew I was young but I never stated an age and he never stated his age even though Fili and Kili told me theirs. It never came up and no one objecte-”

Bilbo watched stunned as Gandalf stood up. There was a distinct rumble in the ground as the wizard marched forward, waking all the dwarves up in various states of panic.

“ _ **THORIN OAKENSHIELD**_ ”

The injured dwarven king jolted awake at the sound of his name. It was a bit more like a clap of thunder that had distinct words rather than a shout.

The wizard’s pipe was nowhere to be seen but he stood forebodingly over Thorin.

“Gandalf.” Thorin stated, trying to sit up. There was a grunt of pain and the wizard’s name had been a statement and a question all at once. The other dwarves were sitting in petrified silence as they watched the wizard loom over their king.

“How old was Bilbo when you married him?”

“By the look of him and his manners at least 80. Tis an acceptable and appro-”

“He was fifteen.” Gandalf snapped.

The atmosphere shifted and all the dwarves looked horrified. Thorin’s normally tanned skin was white, Fili and Kili were wide eyed mouths hanging open slightly.

“He was...he was what?” Thorin swallowed hard, looking panicked and torn.

“Fifteen. Hobbits live shorter lives than dwarves and while he was of an acceptable age for making such decisions he will be _lucky_ to live to see a hundred. Hobbits are not dwarves, Master Oakenshield,” Gandalf spat the words out. “In fact they are closer to elves when it comes to temperments and love. If a hobbit loses their beloved, for they only have _one_ of those, or their children, of which they try to have many, they can Fade. They will slowly start to deteriorate emotionally, mentally, withdrawing into themselves. Then one day, when the heartache has become too much to _bear_ , they go to sleep and never wake up. Usually succumbing to death within two or three days.”

Bilbo had scrambled up at that point, moving towards where Gandalf and Thorin were.

“ _Gandalf_ ,” Bilbo started. “I never said _no_. I was willing and had committed myself to Thorin as thoroughly as he had to me. Not that I was aware we were officially married, mind you, but it was a bit of an unspoken knowledge that we were to be forever faithful. It was quite obvious where everything was going to everyone in Hobbiton. _If_ there was any thought or consensus that it was inappropriate past the ‘oh no Baggins will never be respectable because he’s shacked up with a dwarf’ there would be no stopping anyone from barging in and putting a stop to it. The Tooks at least would have stormed my house in force and would not have listened to any protests made by me as they would have explained to Thorin the general inappropriateness of everything and would have told him to wait. As it was I was just fuel for gossipy mothers and general disapproval over the fact my chosen was a dwarf and not a hobbit.”

Thorin’s hands scrubbed his face as he tried to comprehend what was going on.

“I thought...by the Valar Bilbo. I didn’t know hobbits aged so quickly. I didn’t know...I was not happy to leave your side. None of us were, but as dwarves letters are insults or tidings of great calamity. We either deliver the message ourselves or we send something else that can talk. Years, decades can go by without word and we bear it because it is our way. Not that we are thrilled not to hear from our loved ones but we would respect their honor more than we would our selfish need to see them....I honestly thought I would die before you not....not the other way around.”

Bilbo felt his heart ache for Thorin. “Thorin...we’re still not okay. I’m cross with you, I’ve been hurt by you, but don’t think I’ve regretted the choices I made by loving you or Fili and Kili. I didn’t stop wearing my braids because I stopped loving you or had forsaken you. I stopped wearing them because I thought you were dead. That all of you were dead and seeing the braids in my hair was too much of a reminder of what I had lost. Then this adventure happened and you seemed intent on ignoring what had previously been and it made me realize that I was not enough and never had been. You need Erebor, your home. I will help you relcaim it, but I won’t-”

He cut himself off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is not a discussion we should be having in front of the Company.” Taking in a deep breath of cool mountain air he tried to settle his nerves and riotous emotions. “We will talk, we need to to clear up some misunderstandings but right now I can’t handle it. I’m too raw and you’ve been used as a chew toy. Gandalf if you hurt him over this I will be more than cross. Figure out what we’re going to do and send one of our boys or Bofur over to inform me. I need quiet.”

“As you wish Bilbo.” Thorin said softly, his eyes focused on the halfling. Everyone, really, was watching Bilbo right now in varying states of horror and concern. Turning on his heel he walked to where he and Gandalf had gone to start this horrible mess.


	15. Lost in Translation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bifur speaks his mind.

Bilbo had exactly ten minutes to himself. Not a second more and not a second less.

Two pairs of arms wrapped around him and ended his solitude.

The hobbit was not going to remark on the trembling in their limbs or the wetness now in his hair. He couldn’t muster up irritation that they broke his quiet time, while he was picking up little pieces of Baggins blood to form a respectable sort of countenance despite all the personal laundry that was aired so spectacularly in public.

There had been many things Bilbo had taught Fili and Kili about hobbit culture. The importance of bathing regularly had been once, but it was mainly because it was quite easy to tell that dwarves had a much different perspective on that sort of thing. He taught them about songs, walking songs, drinking songs, sleeping songs. He had briefly, quietly, talked about Fading songs. Not going on about the act, because by hobbit-y standards they had been just a tad too young to explain why hearing such a mournful tone at twilight was disheartening and sad in a way beyond just the lyrics. No he had focused on food and manners, trying to get them to a place where they could go to the Took’s Smials. Which they did, twice in fact! Oh to see his children amongst the far flung cousins of Tooks had warmed Bilbo’s heart. He had taught them about hobbit dress and why gardens were so important. Bilbo hadn’t ignored the cultural differences, hadn’t deliberately kept important information from them. He had just quite simply, and very erroneously, believed that he had had more time with them.

Another quiet, for a dwarf at least, pair of footsteps came and he could feel his boys cling tighter to him.

“Lads,” Bofur began very quietly, and very very gently. “He’s not going t’ be Fading anytime soon. He-”

“Thought we were dead.” Fili’s voice interjected, thick and hoarse.

Kili isn’t talking because he can’t. His teeth are once again clenched into the fabric of Bilbo’s shirt, holding it there much like a small child would suck their thumb or reach for their favorite teddy. Perhaps, Bilbo thought to himself idly, that that was exactly what Kili did to comfort himself growing up with so little. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to afford a toy or maybe he lost his, like he’d lost so many other things, and learned that he would always have fabric and cloth.

“He thought we were dead and he’s almost gone and how can he be young and old at the same time? How could he still come with us?”

“Because,” Bilbo began, with love welling up inside him for his children. He was tired and hurt, he had been dragged through a bramble bush emotionally. Still it couldn’t stop the warmth he felt for them or the care. “You are my family. You are mine to love and care for. Home is not a hobbit hole in the Shire, home is not a place, not really. It’s a sense, a feeling, a state of being. You are my home. Hobbits care little for riches or gold, because they do not give you warmth or love. They don’t build a sense of belonging, community, or love. They’re cold dead things that you can’t scold or worry over, you can’t be held by wealth or protected by it. ‘Good food feeds your family, good drink waters them, warm beds let them rest, and good pipeweed settles the nerves after a long day’. Hobbits place the value of these simple things above all else because it is the simple joys that give us so much and what can keep us going through the dark moments we all must face. A good hobbit, a respectable hobbit, won’t leave on an adventure because it would be wrong to leave our spouses or children alone. It is why Gandalf chose me, for I was alone and a ‘bachelor’, but it is also why I came. I am a Baggins of Bag End and Bagginses would never let their family go headlong into danger by themselves. Respectability be damned, family is worth far more to a Baggins than looking presentable for tea.”

Bilbo could feel Fili and Kili shaking just a bit more.

“Hobbits really are amazing creatures. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch. The world would be a better place if we all acted like hobbits.”

Gandalf’s voice was softer now, gentle as he addressed the dwarves.

“We cannot linger here too long. I have a friend close by who will give us shelter and Thorin sorely needs medical attention. You two need to scout ahead while Bifur and Gloin help your Uncle with moving.”

At the wizard’s words and urging, Bilbo was quite sure that telling him that it was time to depart had been why Fili and Kili (as well as Bofur) had come over to him. It took a minute for the princes to find it in them to be able to let go and when Bilbo looked up they both looked close to presentable. The redness around their eyes could be attributed towards exhaustion and not the tears Bilbo knew they had been shedding earlier.

Bofur stayed beside him when the other three left.

“Right mess this is, that you’ve all gotten yourself into Bilbo.” Bofur began. “I must say I do not envy Thorin right now. Gloin ’s trying desperately to give him ‘proper’ relationship advice and chide him over his lack of knowledge when it came to you and Bifur....well Bifur just keeps reminding Thorin that he’s a ‘pervy hobbit fancier’.”

Exhausted as he was Bilbo couldn’t help but lean into Bofur’s side and laugh. “ ‘Pervy hobbit fancier’? There’s actually a phrase for that in khuzudul?”

The miner and toymaker ruffled Bilbo’s hair. “Well that is the nicest thing Bifur’s calling him right now.”

“Do I want to know what else Bifur is calling him?” Bilbo asked dryly.

“No, if I repeated it I’d have to wash my own mouth out with soap to feel clean again. That is if Bifur didn’t hear me and come over to do it himself. Brothers are hypocritcal like that.”

Bilbo couldn’t help but snort and then giggle helplessly at the mental image of Bofur saying something so foul that he’d voluntarily wash his mouth out with soap or Bifur storming over and doing it like Bilbo had had to do a handful of times with Fili and Kili.

“Also there’s no way to translate some of the more colorful slang he’s using.”

Bilbo watched the dwarf with the axe in his head mutter something particularly vulgar in Khzudul if Bilbo had to guess. Not that he understood the secret language of dwarves well, but the way Ori seemed to wheeze and choke on air looking scandalized while the other dwarves (excluding Oin who probably hadn’t understood Bifur’s words without his hearing trumpet) looked completely unsure of how they were to react to such comments.

Bofur did not leave his side and Bifur seemed quite content to speak his mind to his king about his opinion on his relationship with Bilbo. It seemed that Bifur spoke for the rest of the Company as well as during the entire walk to Beorn’s hall no one dared to try to rescue their king from Bifur’s tirade (or Gloin’s ‘helpful’ marriage counselling).


	16. Not Quite As Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you guys need fluff.

Bilbo shut the massive door behind him. Beorn’s home was large, far too large for the hobbit. Perhaps if the shapeshifter had had hobbit sized furniture then maybe he’d be more at ease....

Ah whom was he kidding? He was ill at ease for the simple fact he had to speak to Thorin. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t exchanged words before on the journey. They had, quite a few. But they’d never really _talked_. Now they must, when they had shelter and time to take a breath. It wouldn’t do to keep it festering, not when so many things had come to light.

The king was laying back on the bed, his shirt off and bandages wrapped around his chest. He wasn’t asleep, not with how his eyes were open, staring at Bilbo. The King Under the Mountain propped himself up.

The hobbit took all his Tookish bravery and walked further into the room and sat down on the bed, at the edge, quiet as he stared back into Thorin’s eyes.

“You were so young, why did no one stop us? Why didn’t you tell me?”

At least this hadn’t begun with shouting Bilbo thought to himself. It would have been easy to devolve straight into a fight, flinging words at each other. Which is why Bilbo had stayed quiet, his Took side always tended to come out when confronted with Thorin.

“I should answer that with the reason why Gandalf sent you to the Shire in the first place. Well not you, but asked for one of the ‘finest dwarven warriors’ to come. You were apprised of the Fell Winter, I take it?”

The dwarven king nodded slowly.

“It was a horrible business. Attacks at any time, wolves and orcs raiding our food stores or whomever came to trade with us. We were freezing, starving, and so many were ill. My mother and I had been travelling back from the Smials when we were attacked. It was close to the end...no not close, it was the end of the Fell Winter you see. By that time we’d all learned to carry daggers or swords, but an orcish raiding party is...not something two hobbits can deal with. We fought them and I was injured, the scar you always got grumpy over when we had sex...that is where I got it from. I was down and my mother...she was a Took to her core or maybe just a mother but she was on the orcs and killed several before they managed to strike her down...The remaining orcs and wolves would have killed me if Gandalf and the Rangers hadn’t arrived. The orcs killed no more hobbits but...to hobbits seeing death like that, fighting and surviving, being marked by grief gave me a bit more maturity in the eyes of the community.”

Thorin’s hand, large and rough reached out and covered Bilbo’s own. He hadn't fully realized he’d been fidgeting with the cloth of his nearly ruined vest. The warm familiar weight soothed Bilbo, eased some apprehension.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Thorin’s voice was low and sincere. “It also explains your nightmares. Don’t look so surprised, I shared your bed for months. Even if I hadn’t noticed then do you think I could have ignored them on this journey?”

“No I suppose not...” Bilbo’s voice was soft. He turned his hand and gently...hesitantly, held Thorin’s hand in his. “That wasn’t to get pity Thorin it was to help explain...Hobbit children grow up fast. Faster than humans, physically you had the right of it I would roughly have been the age Fili is to dwarves right now. I was physically an adult and the community judge me to be mature enough to make my own decisions regarding myself and Bag End. If not someone deemed of the correct maturity would have moved in with me or I with them until it was deemed I was mature enough to be on my own. I also didn’t tell you because I honestly didn’t think of it. Physical ages are generally kept note of in the Shire, but we only really make note of three times. The first year a hobbit has been alive their age is recognized, celebrated, and they’re given a name. The next date we celebrate is our thirty-third birthday, it’s when we’re granted the full privileges in adulthood. We’re adults before then, make no mistake, but we’re allowed to buy our own property or start up our own trade if we haven’t inherited anything. The final age we place any value on is a hundred...and all birthdays over a hundred. Between those times birthdays are celebrations of life, not always a marking of time passing if that makes any sense.”

Bilbo’s hand tightened on Thorin’s when he realized the dwarven king was _listening_ to him, to what he had to say. The injured man was absorbing the information with all the intensity and focus the king once placed in his smithing craft.

“I wasn’t unwatched, Thorin. Our relationship was well known quite before that time we got caught in the forge. Everyone knew where it was going even before we came together the first time. There was a little grumbling over my age, but it was deemed far more scandalous that you were a dwarf. No one thought you would hurt me or leave me, no one thought I would be in any danger from you. If anyone really thought you would leave they would have intervened, in force. Instead they all assumed we’d get married come summer and raise our dwobbits to be partially respectable.”

Thorin raised his eyebrow at the strange word. “‘Dwobits’?”

“Dwarf-hobbits, that’s what my cousin Primula called Fili and Kili.”

Thorin chuckled at the description, though his intense eyes seemed haunted. “I did leave you though. You’ve spent more than half your life in pain because of me...I wasn’t aware that hobbits were so short lived. I had thought it strange you looked so different than how I remembered you, older, worn....but you were without your braids. To me, to any dwarf who’d see their spouse with unbraided hair, it said you had given up our love, given up on our family. You were supposed to be a stranger, unattached....and to me it had been long but not too long to cause such a reaction. I was angry, furious that my affections had been toyed with...then you started up a liason with Bofur-”

“Liason is a very very strong word to call what is between Bofur and I and you know it.” Bilbo frowned, eyes narrowing. “Bofur was the first friend I have made in several decades and he’s made things easier on me. I also happen to know that he’s no more sexually attracted to me as he is to Bifur or Bombur. In fact he has just a bit of a crush on Ori, not that I’m supposed to know about it but really if you start getting growly and possessive over Bofur I am going to have to hit you with Bombur’s frying pan.”

Thorin grumbled for a moment before calming. “I will try not to get jealous of Bofur.”

“Good.”

Somehow they had moved. Bilbo was no longer on the edge of the great bed as much as he was on it and had moved to sit with his back against the headboard. Their hands were still connected and Bilbo could feel the heat of Thorin’s body as the dwarf sat next to his side. And it was a little easier to just lean slightly to the side and rest lightly against Thorin.

“I’m sorry for hurting you too.” Bilbo said softly.

“There is a great deal of grief that could have been avoided if we had just....talked more about our cultures. We will talk, more. There is a great deal of time I have missed with you and I’m not going to waste it. We’re not going to waste it though...” Thorin’s breath was a little shaky. “Are you still...will you Fade?”

“I won’t so long as you and our boys don’t get yourselves killed. It will take time to regain what I lost during the process but I stopped Fading the moment Kili and Fili walked in my door, granted I thought at the time I had actually started the final process of Fading because I really did think all of you were dead.”

Thorin relaxed at that, his hand untangling from Bilbo’s. Wrapping an arm around his hobbit’s shoulders he pulled Bilbo closer. A kiss was placed on top of Bilbo’s head and they sat quietly for a moment. 

“I know this is...potentially inappropriate given what I don’t know about dwarven culture.” Bilbo finally broke the silence as he shifted in Thorin’s grasp. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his most priceless precious treasure. Seeing the hair clasps in Bilbo’s hand Thorin stiffened, he looked wary and guarded. “But could you...braid my hair? There’s a lot we still ne-mmmmphhh.” Bilbo had been quite ready to start rambling when he’d been cut off by Thorin’s mouth. It was rougher than he remembered, the feel of Thorin’s lips, but the prickle of his beard was familiar and soothing. It was a sweet kiss, far more gentle than what he normally had remembered Thorin’s kisses being. Bilbo’s free hand came up, tangling into Thorin’s mane. Thorin broke the kiss with a gentle nip to Bilbo’s bottom lip.

Bilbo couldn’t help but tilt his face up to nuzzle Thorin’s. It wasn’t completely fixed, the hurts that they had given each other, the years apart, yet it had begun to mend and heal. That was enough, for now. Thorin’s hands were gentle as he finally urged his husband to move, situating him better. The dwarven king was reverent as he placed Bilbo’s braids back in his hair and the clasps to keep them in place. There was relief in Thorin’s eyes, a little bit of peace in his countenance as he fondled Bilbo’s braids.

Then Thorin moved his hands downwards, to Bilbo’s shoulders and urged the halfling to move again. Bilbo found himself lying next to Thorin, curled into his king’s side. They both fell asleep, less broken than they had been when they had woken that morning.


	17. Brothers Are Quite Annoying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more is learned about dwarves.

“Bifur, _no_.”

There was a disappointed, if not irritated string of words Bilbo could not for the life of him accurately translate. Yet, despite not knowing the secret language of the dwarves he could carry on a perfectly coherent conversation with Bifur. Just because he couldn’t speak the ancient powerful words that only occasionally sounded like a cat heaving up a hair ball didn’t mean he couldn’t get the jist of what the dwarf was saying.

“I don’t care if it’s proper for dwarves beat up husbands of their sisters whom they’ve hurt, hobbits don’t do that and I do say that if there is to be any pain involved we have to agree Azog and his psychotic fluffy friend took care of that responsibility.”

There was some gestures now with the words, it was a bit like a game of charades. A very inventive colorful game of charades. Really! Did Bifur quite have to explain it in _that_ much detail?

“ _No_! How is that physically even possible? No! I don’t want you to show me an example.”

Bilbo had never been quite as conscientious of the differences between hobbits and dwarves as he was right now. Of course he knew there were differences culturally but this was getting quite ridiculous in Bilbo’s humble hobbit opinion.

“How has your race survived with such practices in place? No wonder Kili and Fili had such difficulties adjusting to hobbit cleanliness, the amount of bodily fluids that would produce....It’s _unsanitary_.”

Bifur looked affronted and muttered something quite sulkily in Bilbo’s opinion.

“It is unsanitary! No, don’t try and argue with me on that Bifur! I am not going to change my mind on that. Besides that’s not as important as why you keep calling me your _sister_ and Gloin called me Thorin’s ‘missus’. I am quite clearly _not_ a woman.”

Bifur looked quite ready to reply and explain to Bilbo the exact nature of what was happening until Ori, quiet sweet Ori, looked up from his knitting and fixed his gaze on Bilbo. All the dwarves (excluding Thorin who was still in their room sleeping from whatever strangely foul concoction Oin had shoved down the king’s throat) were around him, doing their own little things to pass the time and relax. None of them had tried to intercede in his and Bifur’s discussion, which meant (as Bilbo had now learned about dwarven culture) that they were all in agreement with the insane toymaker’s plan.

“I can tell you that, Master Bilbo.” Ori’s voice was quiet and demure as it had always been. Bilbo felt a warm sort of fondness for their youngest member, much like what he felt for Fili and Kili. There had been many nights along the road, where Ori had lent Bilbo his spare set of needles and some yarn, and they had knitted and talked of many things during shared watches. “He isn’t insulting you. Being seen as a woman don’t always got a lot to do with your gender as much as what you do for your family and community. We don’t have many women, maybe one in ten born is such. Women take care of our homes, they protect our families, and they’re seen as usually being stronger than most warriors because they can cow our fiercest men usually without having to brandish more than a frying pan. They’re also nonexpendable, women don’t usually come on adventures like this one because we’ll need them there to help us take Erebor and make it a _home_ rather than just a mountain with a dead dragon and treasure inside. You’ve got a good heart in you and...a sort of gentleness but that isn’t all. You don’t need big weapons to win a fight or protect us, you’ve got cleverness in you. It isn’t an insult being seen as a woman and our sister, it’s a honor. We can’t lose you, Master Bilbo, it would hurt us far more than anything else we could think of. So we’re trying to care for you as we know how and...dwarven women don’t Fade because we’re made like mountains and no matter what we wish could happen we endure it all, but hearing about it and learning what it could do... Killing a woman or nearly killing a woman is a horrible crime and king or no our honor as dwarves demands he pay for it.”

Bilbo tried to absorb what he’d learned. Tried to fit it into what he knew of dwarves and found it made sense, in it’s own odd way. But the Baggins and Took side to him rebelled at the thought of twelve angry dwarves enacting vengeance on their king for him, especially when (not that everything was forgotten or entirely forgiven yet) their king had been hurt just as much in his own way.

“Azog took care of that for you.” Bilbo replied, his hands going to his hips as he levelled an unamused but uncompromising stare at his dwarves. “His own pride and honor are also doing far worse to him than any of you could physically hope to. I’m not saying everything is right yet, but what will happen is that he and I will work on it and fix it and if I even get an inkling that any of you are butting your noses into places you don’t belong right now I will be very _very_ cross.”

There was uncomfortable shifting amongst all the dwarves as they listened to their hobbit reprimand them. It was strange, to Bilbo at least, to have this much sway over men who could quite literally squish him or hurt him in any various number of ways.

“Alright, laddie. We’ll do it your way.” Dwalin grumbled. Bilbo sighed in relief as all the dwarves relaxed a bit and some of the hostility in the air dimmed.

“Good.”

With the matter settled Bilbo found him once again stolen by Bifur as the toymaker made a comment. The hobbit turned red.

“WHAT HAPPENS IN MY BEDROOM IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS BIFUR!”

The room erupted into raucous laughter, well excepting Fili and Kili who looked somewhere between amused and horrified. And despite it all and what had been Bilbo knew that no matter what came, it would all be alright in the end.


	18. Lazy Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More fluff and romance

Bilbo woke the next morning in a soft bed. It wasn’t a quick waking, he was comfortable and warm. He felt rested and he felt safe. So Bilbo was quite content to say ‘sod it’ to waking and burrow further into the blankets if he hadn’t felt the kiss to his shoulder.

It was gentle, barely a brush of lips and whiskers on his bare skin. It was a kiss nonetheless and how had he missed being woken to kisses like that. The arm around his waist tightened, keeping him close to Thorin’s heavily furred (and bandaged) chest.

He could have rushed himself into a further state of awareness. He could have pushed so his mind was clear and less foggy. Except this was nice, this lazy sort of comfort. It was a kind that he knew was rare, was ever so precious. They’d not get many opportunities like this in the future, it just wasn’t conceivable. Not while they were on this silly adventure to reclaim a lost kingdom.

Thorin petted him, petted his chest and soft stomach in that unique Thorin fashion that was a mixture of reverent and possessive. Bilbo was far too happy, far too content, with the gentle nibbles to his pointed ears to be embarrassed about his body. He could be embarrassed later, when they were awake. When Thorin was actually looking at him rather than fitting their bodies snugly together and being so painfully gentle.

“Bilbo?” Thorin’s voice was thick with sleep and desire. It was a rumbling purr that Bilbo had long since thought he’d never hear again.

“Mmmm?”

“May I touch you?”

It was a strange question, Bilbo’s sleepy Tookish blood pointed out, wasn’t Thorin already touching him? Then the Baggins blood huffed half amused because he realized what Thorin was asking for exactly.

Decades ago Thorin hadn’t needed to ask. He had known through Bilbo’s body language when he did or did not have permission to start something. But that was decades ago, before a great many things had happened. It was nice to see, nice to know, that Thorin wasn’t assuming. Bilbo also knew that being relaxed and pliant in Thorin’s arms was not enough for the king. Thorin needed permission, needed to hear it in Bilbo’s words.

This was why he loved his beautiful (and frustrating) smith.

“Yes.” It was just a single word, but it was sincere. Not all their problems were fixed, but there was trust between them now, and love still. Love was still there, in their hearts, and that was what made this okay.

Most of the time, decades ago, there had been a rough edge to most of their passions. Bilbo had often had faint bruises on his skin, hobbits could be delicate creatures while dwarves most certainly weren’t. But the roughness only came in the scrape of Thorin’s beard against his skin or the sharp nips designed to lay a visible claim on Bilbo’s skin.

Everything else was gentle. It was slow and lazy, despite how long it had been, neither of them rushed. They savored each other, explored and caressed with care.

“I love you Bilbo Baggins.” Thorin whispered in his ear as they rocked together languidly. “More than all the gold in Erebor.”

Bilbo felt his heart swell and break with those words. He pressed his own kiss to Thorin’s mouth, pouring all the love he had into it. Gasping he pulled away, not fully aware of the tears in his eyes. Pressing his forehead to Thorin’s he smiled, fingers tangled in the dwarve’s thick silver streaked hair.

“I love you Thorin Oakenshield.” He moaned and pressed a kiss to the corner of Thorin’s mouth. “More than all the gold or treasure you could give me, you were my smith before you became my king.”

Thorin gripped him tighter then and words became lost to them both as they moved together a little more hurriedly.

When they came together and reached their peaks, the warm lingering laziness did not wane. Panting and smiling they kissed and touched, not quite willing to leave their bed quite yet. For the moment at least, all was right in their world...

Well until the sound of something shattering broke through their dream.

“KILI!”

“I didn’t do it I SWEAR!”

“FILI!”

Bilbo looked at Thorin a smirk bringing his lips to an upwards curve.

“It’s your turn to deal with your nephews.” Bilbo muttered with some amusement as he flopped himself back on the bed.

“My nephews? They’re your nephews too.”

“They’re not my nephews when they break things in other people’s homes.” Bilbo replied with a laugh, watching as Thorin carefully got out of bed and began to dress. He stifiled his giddy laughter when Thorin finished fixing his hair and strode towards the door, doing his best to look imposing and stern. Bilbo didn’t have the heart to tell him his shirt was on backwards and he had a particularly impressive hicky on his throat.

His children’s distressed and panicked noises when they realized what they had potentially been interrupting made it all worth Thorin’s eventual ire at not being told how he looked.

It was nice to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update. My life got hectic for a few days, so I tried to make up for the absence with something that will make you vomit rainbows.


	19. Mirkwood Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirkwood, need I say more?

Mirkwood was one of those places you knew you had to be insane to go to. It was all in the name, really, ‘Mirkwood’. ‘Mirk’ was not a pleasant descriptor of any kind in anyone’s imagination, unless the person imagining had a fondness for dark, dank, dismal places. Actually putting the word ‘Mirk’ in front of anything soured anyone’s anticipation towards getting there. Mirkmeadow, Mirkbrook, Mirkbrothel, all of them sounded dangerous and horrible despite the fact that meadows, brooks, and brothels tended to be pleasant places to go.

Well at least that was if what Bifur was saying was true.

Well if what Bofur was saying Bifur said was true. Bilbo couldn’t see Bifur in the horribly suffocating darkness that surrounded them. Losing his ability to see the dwarf, to read his body language and interpret his signs made it impossible for Bilbo to fully understand what the dwarf was saying.

At least the most comforting thing he had at the moment was the fact his hands were fisted in Thorin’s cape. It was just an illusion of added safety, and illusion he gladly embraced. They were hungry, desperate, injured, and tired. If he found some slight amount of comfort in the feel of his husband’s cape, then by the Valar he was going to clutch it like a scared child would clutch the skirts of their mother. He had no shame in this. None at all.

So long as he didn’t call Thorin ‘mummy’ everything would be fine.

...as well as Fili and Kili didn’t call him ‘mummy’ either for he was fairly certain that was why his coattails were being held.

Well it wouldn’t be so bad to be their mother. In dwarven culture he was fairly certain he was more than halfway there. After Ori had explained his status amongst the dwarves he had carefully reexamined every interaction with them. Even from the time when Fili and Kili had first arrived at his doorstep.

Yes, Bilbo would admit to himself that he had been, in dwarven eyes, a female role model. That he had likely been a mother figure to the children. In a hobbit’s view Bilbo was simply being an affectionate parental figure, that there was no gender assigned to what role a parent had save for the birthing. But dwarven culture, as Bilbo was slowly learning, had far different ideas about the roles of parents and gender in general.

It wasn’t bad though. It was different. But it made sense in a way, at least when he was trying to look at it through the perspective of a dwarf. When looking at it through a hobbit’s eyes, he felt a sense of confusion and curiosity as well as a strong desire for a good pot of tea. For as hobbits knew any confusion or emotional crisis could be solved with a good pot of tea.

His musings though were cut short when he heard a gasp.

“ _FOOD_ ”

Bilbo suddenly found himself quite confused because Thorin had jerked away from him, Fili and Kili had let go, and everyone was crashing out into the underbrush clearly not remembering ‘do not stray from the path’. The hobbit wasn’t even sure who had said it (though he suspected Bombour, who was an honorary hobbit at heart). He would like to point out that as the sole biological hobbit in the party he really shouldn’t have been the only one to not dash off at the promise of food. Because as much as Bilbo loved food, and wanted food, and really needed food at this point. Mirkwood was a horrible place full of awful things and somehow food magically appearing was highly suspect. 

Quite like Gandalf when he had first loomed in front of Bilbo talking about adventure. Despite having known the wizard, remembered who he was, Bilbo could quite freely admit that Gandalf had been more than a bit shady. Really ‘adventure’, the way he had said it, it sounded quite dirty. Almost like an innuendo, which was a bit more amusing now in memory than it had been when it had actually happened. At the time Bilbo had thought he was going insane, right now Bilbo knew he was insane and could muffle a laugh over his thoughts.

Which he shouldn’t because he was alone in a horrible place called _Mirkwood_.

Steeling his courage he took out his enchanted letter opener and ventured into the forest. 

Searching and calling out for his dwarves. Bilbo had to admire his fortitude for it took him only half an hour (by his estimation) before his patience snapped.

“Fili! Kili! Thorin! Bifur! Bofur! Bombour! Balin! Dwalin! Oin! Gloin! Dori! Nori! Ori! OH FOR THE LOVE OF VALAR BOYS IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER ME THIS SECOND I AM GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE AWARE OF EVERY INSTANCE WHERE YOUR UNCLE AND I DO MORE THAN HOLDS HANDS AND KISS CHASTELY.” 

It got the response he wanted. Two twin high pitched noises of acute distress reached his ears. With a half smirk of satisfaction he ventured forward only to realize he shouldn’t be satisfied at all. There were cocoons around him, he now realized, and thick spider webs. He couldn’t be blamed really, they were all just a bit above his eye level. The two panicked wiggling coccoons making strangled desperate noises made him go from amused shock to burning fury.

“ **FILI! KILI!** ” 

Bilbo was on the cocoons with a vengeance. Trying hard to cut his children free while trying equally hard not to cut them. Kili was the first to be freed, pale and weak. Fili followed soon after.

“Spiders...the spiders.” Kili weakly tried to grab Bilbo. The hobbit gently touched his youngest’s head.

“Love you need to help free the others. Go!” 

Kili made a noise of protest but Fili was struggling to get to his feet and determinedly went to a cocoon. Bilbo himself darted around, freeing dwarves, trying to find their weapons. They’d gotten everyone free by the time the spiders came back. Well almost everyone. Thorin wasn’t there. He wasn’t in any cocoon which meant....which meant nothing Bilbo wished to dwell on.

Staring at his sons Bilbo felt the Baggins and the Took sides rising up within him. Taking in a fortifying breath he realized the decision he had just made really wasn’t a choice. It could never be a choice for a hobbit, because that would imply there might have been another path to take.

“Dwalin!” Bilbo didn’t tear his eyes away from his children. “The path is straight ahead. You keep everyone together and you go to it. Understand me? Do not turn back. I’ll keep the spiders off you.” Fili and Kili made whimpering cries, Kili’s hand reaching out once more towards Bilbo.

“Love you both so very much. Don’t worry I’ll be back before you even really miss me.” Bilbo tried keep his boys from fearing the worst. Running towards the spiders he slipped on his ring.

He felt a vicious sort of pride when he killed the spiders and drew them from his group, his family. He was no mighty warrior like Thorin or Dwalin, or even a particularly good one like Fili and Kili. Bilbo was a burglar after all, burglars rarely fought and when they did they fought with their brains.

Also having a magic ring that turned him invisible helped a great deal.

When he finally thoroughly killed and distracted the spiders he slipped away, uncomfortably aware he was now covered in spider guts, still very hungry, and just a tad hysterical. He had a right to be hysterical, his children had nearly been killed and his husband likely so. Bilbo was going to have to kill Thorin if he ever found his body. He was going to have to kill him, take up necromancy resurrect Thorin, and then kill him again.

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan. After he made sure his children were in fact safe.

When he made it back to the group Bilbo very nearly swore. His dwarves were in a small bedraggled cluster, glaring viciously at a patrol of elves who had surrounded them.

That was IT! The forest was going to burn. There was no way around it at this point. The Green Lady would just have to deal with the fact that Bilbo was going to drag Smaug from Erebor and use the dragon to wipe this accursed forest off the face of Middle Earth before killing him with a letter opener named Sting.

Glaring at the elves in a manner most befitting his husband Bilbo followed them and his now recaptured dwarves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken so long to update. My life literally sort of exploded for a bit and I couldn't give the story the words it needed. I apologize for the shortness or the rambliness of it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get my brain to work out something a bit better.


	20. Suprisingly Thranduil Doesn't Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a lesson in this: Don't Piss Off Hobbits

The mighty poncy elves of Mirkwood did not know what hit them.

They may be immortal graceful beautiful and well learned, but they did not in fact have a true grasp of pile of shit they had stepped in when they had taken Bilbo Baggins’ family. They did not know that there was nothing more fearsome or terrifying than a pissed of hobbit.

Especially a pissed off hobbit with a magical ring.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if Bilbo had not been tired, sore, hungry, and hysterical from his time in Mirkwood’s forests. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if the elves hadn’t dared to separate Fili and Kili, who despite being drugged and injured fought their elvish captors. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if Bilbo hadn’t followed Kili to his cells and heard his child’s heartwrenching sobs.

No, Thranduil had just made an enemy of Bilbo Baggins.

Perhaps if he’d been more dwarvish he would have assassinated the elves. But Bilbo Baggins was not a dwarf, he was a hobbit. A hobbit who might not have been a burglar when he’d started his journey, but he had been a hobbit who had been a _master_ at pranking. He hadn’t enjoyed it as much in his later years, when he’d been Fading, but sometimes he had to do something to keep his relatives on their toes.

And surprisingly it was much harder to prank Lobelia Sackville-Baggins than it was to prank the great golden gits of Mirkwood.

It had started out small, for Bilbo did not know the lay of the land yet. Just little things at first, carefully moving a cup an inch to the left, taking a single sock and placing it in another elf’s drawer, switching the under things of multiple elves. Easy, harmless, watching how the elves became confused and mildly agitated.

He began gifting the small things to his dwarves. A sock for Kili, a hair tie for Fili, a journal for Ori... As he grew to learn the secret nooks and crannies of the elf kingdom he began to learn the elves.

A fish in a wine barrel made his day just a little brighter. A dash of a mixture of dandelion and nettle with a few extra special ingredients mad Bilbo snicker as he watched the guards slowly but surely fidget more and more and more until they raced off to the bathroom.

Probably the only thing that kept Bilbo Baggins from actually slipping poison into the food and drink of the Mirkwood elves was that they were feeding his family. They were feeding them well enough and they _had_ Thorin.

Which honestly relieved him and infuriated him further. Yes of course take only one dwarf and leave the rest to be killed and eaten by spiders. Certainly nothing bad could come from that plan besides dead dwarves. They obviously hadn’t factored in a furious hobbit into that lovely plan. He was grateful they’d saved his husband but spitting at the thought of them leaving his _children_.

“You’re safe?”

Thorin had asked the question every time Bilbo had slipped into the hall that held his husband.

“Of course not, love, but I’m being smart.”

A grumble of displeasure from Thorin had Bilbo smiling. Thorin was like an large crotchety tom cat. One that was locked away from his favorite toy that could be taken at any moment if Thorin didn’t lay a claim on him. Bilbo reached through the bars of the door, running his fingers through Thorin’s thick mane of hair and hearing a less disgruntled grumble escape the dwarf.

“I have an escape plan.”

“Am I going to like this plan?”

“Probably not. There’s a distinct lack of killing or opportunities for you to be majestic. But it’s the only plan I can come up with.”

“That’s not a good dwarven plan.”

“Good thing then I’m a _hobbit_.”

Thorin grumbled once more but didn’t protest any further than the discontented inarticulate rumbles from his chest. Perhaps it was because Bilbo had managed to get his fingers behind Thorin’s ear, gently scratching him there like one would a cat or dog. Not that Bilbo would ever let anyone else on Thorin’s weakness to being petted. Or ever tell the dwarf king that Bilbo had found it, all those years ago, that sometimes the best ways to deal with his lover (husband) was to tell him the entire plan but to make certain he was distracted while laying out the plan.

So it was with a great deal of cleverness that Bilbo laid out the plan, all the little details like having to shut them all inside barrels and then shove the dwarves into the river, and that Bilbo likely wasn’t going to fit into any barrel and so he’d just have to hold on for the ride and pray he didn’t drown. It was all quite detailed, even if he did use the tone of voice he generally reserved for soothing upset dwarves into a state of calm. It was the same tone of voice that often worked in calming down rabid animals and frightened hobbit children.

By the end of his explanation Thorin was half asleep and looking quite content despite the fact Bilbo had just explained a particularly risky plan that did not in fact take into account the dwarves distinct need to murder elves. Trying not to laugh and ignoring the fact his hand hurt from the continuous movement of petting his husband Bilbo withdrew.

“Sleep well, my smith, tomorrow we shall be free.”

Thorin cracked his blue eyes open to stare at Bilbo longingly. The hobbit’s heart broke just a little, knowing there was no way he could get into the cell with his husband. There was no way to curl up with him, to let Thorin hold him and let the dwarf reassure himself that Bilbo was in fact safe and whole and no worse for wear in this horrible elvish castle.

It would be a lie to say Bilbo wasn’t worse for wear. He was freezing. His bones felt like ice, he knew his skin was a bit cooler to the touch. He had refused to take the ring off for the last week, knowing without a doubt Thorin or his boys would hurl themselves at the cell doors until they broke to get their precious hobbit away from the wretched ring and this castle. Bilbo would also be willing to bet Dwalin and Bifur would join in at hurling themselves at the door, while the other, much smarter dwarves, would plot other various ways to escape and protect their burglar. He knew he was paler than he should be, with dark circles under his eyes.

He was simply going to have to put up with the mothering and male posturing when they got free and not a moment before.

The next night went as expected.

“Thorin get into the barrel.”

“No.”

“Thorin it’s the only way to get out of here.”

“No.”

“Thorin.”

“I did not agree to this plan.”

“Thorin, you did agree to the plan. I told you about it last night.”

Thorin growled at Bilbo. It was supposed to be intimidating, really, except Thorin wasn’t actually looking where Bilbo was supposed to be. That and the hobbit was made of sterner stuff than rabbits, really how could he have ever been intimidated by his husband’s patented Durin glare. It was ridiculous.

“I did not agree to be put into a barrel.”

“Thorin Oakenshield if you do NOT get into that barrel in the next ten seconds you will be _lucky_ if I ever agree to give you another handjob in your lifetime, let alone anything else!”

Twin muffled wails of despair came from two different barrels. 

“I hate you sometimes, my love.” Thorin grumbled as he finally climbed into the barrel.

Bilbo grinned at the dwarven king, leaning down to press a quick kiss to his beloved’s head.

“You only hate that I’m no longer cowed by your majestic and kingly stubbornness and irritability.”

“Hmmph...”

It was only as Bilbo was sealing Thorin into the barrel that the dwarven king realized something very important.

“ _Burglar_ , how are you going to get into your barrel?”

“I’m not, I’m going to ride yours.”

“NO! BILBO! BILBO YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DO THAT! LET ME OUT I AM GOING TO PUT YOU IN MY BARREL! BILBO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“What is that dear? Sorry I can’t quite make out what you’re saying. The sound of the water is drowning you out.”

“YOU CAN HEAR ME PERFECTLY WELL!”

“What was that love?”

Bilbo called back to Thorin in a very good impression of Gloin. Realizing he had to get the dwarves in the water _now_. He was certain one of them, if not all of them would now be trying to break free of their barrels and succeed.

“YOU KNOW WHAT I SAID BURGLAR! GET ME OUT OF THIS BARREL SO I CAN PUT YOU IN ONE TO KEEP YOU SAAAFFEEEE!” The hobbit tried not to laugh when Thorin drew out the word ‘safe’ as he was dropped into the river. Jumping as far as he could Bilbo carefully clung to the barrel of his husband. “WE ARE GOING TO HAVE WORDS ABOUT THIS LATER!”

“I know love! But look on the bright side! We’re out of the castle.”

“There is no bright side to anything when one is stuck in a barrel formerly filled with _elven_ wine!” Thorin hissed at his husband. “Besides, this quest would be for naught if you died.”

The hobbit rested his head on the side of the barrel, trying desperately not to smile like a love sick fool.

“I love you too, Thorin.”

There was a worried grumble from the dwarf in the barrel.

“That admission saved you from a spanking, Burglar.”

“Thorin Oakenshield the hand you use to strike me in any matter will be the hand you no longer have for I will have severed it from your kingly personage.”

“Yes dear...but we are still going to have very strong words about this stunt.”

“Of course we are. Now hush up and rest. You’re going to need to look properly majestic when you’re yelling at me later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update. My life is really hectic right now. But hopefully will be calmer in the next few days, especially since my birthday has now passed. Which hopefully means more posting!


	21. In Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo catches a cold and is taken care of

Love could overcome many things. It could overcome time. It could overcome distance. It could overcome racial boundaries. What it couldn’t overcome, Bilbo Baggins realized, was the stench of unbathed wet dwarf.

“Off!”

The word was muffled in the wet fur of Thorin’s cape, or perhaps it was his husband’s hair? It didn’t matter what it was, actually, it tasted foul in his mouth. It smelled foul to his nose. And really, love could blind one to many faults, but it couldn’t take away one’s sense of smell.

Bilbo flailed weakly in husband’s embrace. Which soon stopped if only because more dwarves were added in. Surrounded by stinking unbathed soggy dwarves Bilbo wanted to cry in relief and misery. Emotionally easier than being covered in troll snot, his Baggins’ side wasn’t in the fetal position in his mind at least, but harder nonetheless because he couldn’t get free.

“Get off him you nitwits!”

Dori’s imperious voice broke through the angry grumblings of the Durins holding Bilbo hostage. The strongest dwarf in their company pushed his way forward and began peeling Durins off their company burglar like a mother peeling off clothes smeared with unmentionable substances of their particularly mischievous child. It was a wonder in and of itself that Dori managed to get Thorin off Bilbo and somehow back into the river before the gray haired dwarf scowled down at the hobbit.

Then with all the practiced care of a mother, Dori began checking Bilbo over, clucking and tutting under his breath at the ‘deplorable state’ of their resident hobbit. He was deemed far too thin for comfort, far too cold to be healthy, and ‘paler than Dwalin’s arse’. The last part Bilbo had never wished to know about himself, really, if only because he knew exactly how pale Dwalin’s arse was. He must look pitifully dreadful if Dori’s descriptions were true, and by the way Oin and the others were staring at him it had to be.

Why, Bilbo hadn’t seen them this upset since that morning on the Carrack where Gandalf had informed them just how old Bilbo had been.

This was going to turn out to be a marvelous day of male posturing and mothering.

The hobbit was thankfully not released into the hands of his family when Dori finished his inspection. It wasn’t to say that Bilbo hadn’t missed his boys and husband, that he hadn’t missed having his personal space invaded by them. It was just he was cold, half drowned, hungry, and in no particularly good state to deal with anyone claiming direct ancestry to Durin the Deathless. Bilbo loved his Durins, but he wanted to love them several feet from his current position because they smelled awful.

It was only after they had gotten to Laketown, after their suspiciously warm welcome by the people, that the cough began.

It wasn’t a little cough that Bilbo sometimes used to clear his throat when his allergies began to act up. No, it was a raking wet cough that hurt his chest and made his dwarves (save Oin, who hadn’t heard it) look panicked.

Bilbo felt awful.

And like all good Hobbits all he wanted was warm tea, fluffy blankets, and a good deal of rest to deal with his illness.

What he got was thirteen dwarves fighting over his bed like it was the matter between life or death that THEY take care of Bilbo.

Thorin had the strongest claim to take care of Bilbo, being that Thorin was his husband. It was almost unanimously decided by everyone else that that meant Thorin couldn’t take care of Bilbo for the dwarf had ‘about as much sense as a bass-ackward mule in heat’ and that ‘(his) decision making skills were highly suspect when it came to hobbits’ as well as something highly unintelligible from Bifur but it sounded insulting (even though just about everything sounded insulting in khzudul) to Bilbo’s ears.

Fili and Kili were discarded simply because ‘they lost the ponies and nearly got Bilbo eaten’.

Then it went downhill from there and only concluded after Dori had literally thrown every other dwarf out of the room save for his brothers and Oin.

Nori was sent to guard the door, while Ori was given a chair and a pile of yarn, and Oin checked Bilbo over and grumbled continuously about ‘fool hobbits’ and ‘how did their race survive with such foolishness bred into them’.

When Oin had finished his inspection he took Dori to the side to give the eldest ‘Ri brother careful instructions over the proper care that their hobbit would need over the next few days. Dori nodded in agreement and Bilbo wondered if this was how Ori felt, swept up under Dori’s protection without even a ‘by your leave’ and being mothered mercilessly.

He was a grown hobbit! He had taken care of himself with similar if not worse illnesses before. Really he wanted to protest, he wanted to at least have a say in what happened to him, but there was something calming about having the crotchety overbearing dwarf smooth his hair and tut at him for his foolishness. It made Bilbo think back to his father. 

Bungo Baggins had been a man who would have done anything for family. A man of his word, a man who would have done just as Bilbo had, tumbling off on an adventure to protect his family from the world and themselves. A man who had been a connoisseur of tea and wine. A little fussy, even by hobbit standards, but a good heart. A willing heart. One that had been so full of love that Bilbo had never thought there could ever be an end to it. It was Bungo who had sat by his bedside more often than not during the illnesses of his childhood, reading stories aloud to his only child, making sure everything was just right.

Dori made Bilbo feel safe and at ease. That perhaps…if just for a little while, he didn’t have to think about what to do and how to protect everyone. That Dori, fussy, mother hen Dori would take care of everyone just until Bilbo got better and could keep everyone in line again.

And when the older dwarf somehow produced a book and began reading aloud from it, Bilbo let his eyes fall shut to the wonderful words and soft clicking of knitting needles. For the first time in weeks he _rested_ without a fear or worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm ridiculously sorry it's taken so long to update. The last few weeks have been their own kind of special hell. My grandfather is ill and we don't know if what's going on with him is some horrible reaction to his meds or if it's Time. He's 93, it could be either or both. My grandmother isn't doing well either, her arthritis is so bad she can't use a can opener. And my sister and I were the ones to go check up on them and it was BAD so we had to call our mom and uncles to come down to take care of them and that's a hellish three ringed circus in itself. And the best way to describe my mom is if a dementor, Delores Umbrdige, and Goldsick!Thorin had a child who was also a minister. And just a whole lot of stress and crazy and just THINGS that would take me way too long to describe in here which I won't because you guys do not want to know the utterly fucked up family I hail from.
> 
> tl;dr  
> My life exploded and I'm trying not to melt down. I'm not ignoring the fic I SWEAR. I will update when I can lovelies.


	22. Still Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo gets cared for by the best mother hen the dwarves have and cuddles Thorin

“My mother died in the Fell Winter.”

Bilbo’s voice was hoarse and soft, his fever bright eyes focused on the ceiling. His curls were dampened with sweat and breathing was a terrible chore. The poor hobbit couldn’t do much more than stare at the ceiling miserably and try not to get sicker. He couldn’t even read a calming book. All he could do was lie there and try to hold conversations with Dori or Ori or Nori.

“That winter we starved, a lot of hobbits died from starvation and sickness, others died from the white wolves and orcs that came and attacked us. It was a dark time and after she died I didn’t know how I could ever find happiness again. Find peace or warmth or goodness. I knew the existed, but they existed to me as now intellectual concepts that I couldn’t understand with my heart anymore.”

A smile crossed his lips as he closed his eyes, recalling the first day he met Fili and Kili.

“Then all of a sudden, in my quiet grief, I was quite rudely awakened by two very mischievous and silly boys. Covered in mud and honey and looking quite ready to go on and cause more trouble with a capital T I had to step in. I am half Took, I can handle mischief, and the half Baggins in me told me to take the children and clean them up and find their guardian afterwards. It’s what hobbits do, you see. We’re all family in one way or another, no matter how distant the ties, and so all children are family and it’s acceptable even encouraged for everyone to look after them. When I had them in my house the ghosts of my parents were gone. When they laughed and smiled they were teaching me how to laugh and smile too. Then Thorin, _Thorin_ he gave me a reason to live, to shake off my grief and my darkness.”

Dori’s hand was gentle as it petted Bilbo’s hair. He couldn’t help it as he turned his head into the touch, nuzzling up into it. There was something about Dori, the grumpy kindheartedness, his distinct love of teas and florals combined with his ability to break anything he cared to that reminded Bilbo of his father. Not that Belladonna hadn’t sat by his bedside many times while he was sick and helped nurse him back to health, but Belladonna didn’t have the knack for it like Bungo. She was always too full of life and energy to be a calming presence. A dear presence. It made Bilbo want to crawl out of his bed and into Dori’s lap and just stay there, pretending for once that he had someone who could look after him and that he didn’t have to do it all by himself.

Yet…that was what Dori was doing now, wasn’t it? Dori had purposefully created a safe haven for Bilbo in this tiny room, employing Dwalin as a guard on the door while Nori was allowed back inside to do whatever it is Nori liked to do in his spare time. Ori was knitting quietly by Dori’s side, constantly checking his stitches to make sure he hadn’t dropped one. Ori and Nori had come and gone a handful of times, fetching the tea or food Dori requested or finding little odds and ends to occupy themselves with as they cared for and guarded their burglar.

“You make me think of my Father.”

It really was a testament to how high Bilbo’s fever was that he let the words tumble out of his mouth. Dori’s hand paused for a moment.

“I do?”

“Mmhmm. It’s his tea set you used in Bag End. He made the doilies you lot pretended were dishrags. He was the one who added all the soft touches to Bag End. He taught me how to mend and stich, and he did love his tea. Couldn’t do anything more than that in the kitchen though, set it on fire twice Mother banned him.”

Bilbo heard Nori snicker from his corner of the room.

“Sounds like Dori had a twin we never knew about.”

“My cooking isn’t that bad Nori.”

“Dori starving dogs wouldn’t eat the leftovers I tried to give them.”

“What?! They should have been grateful to have anything made by me!”

Bilbo couldn’t stop the weak laughter that rose from him and mixed painfully with his coughs. It’s so… This was what he’d been missing for so long. There’s something comforting about having Dori and Nori glaring at each other, fighting, while Ori barely even seems to notice. How he wished, sometimes, he’d been given siblings. This was nice though, more than nice, it was perfect.

It was home.

He had found home again, even after it had been taken away from him so many times before. Bilbo wasn’t alone. He had a family now, made up of a group of thirteen rambunctious dwarves that had more strength than common sense. Yet that’s why they needed him there, because he gave them something they lacked, fitting neatly into a slot where no one besides the Durins had realized they’d been missing.

There’s not even a pause in the bickering as Dori leans over and helps arrange Bilbo into a sitting position. He doesn’t even have to look as he hands the hobbit another cup of warm tea to soothe his hoarse throat and queasy stomach. Calling it tea would be a bit of a stretch though, since it was mainly hot ginger water with a little bit of honey and lemon added in to make it more palatable. Another odd little thing that reminded Bilbo strongly of home, of his father who had been long long dead now.

Sipping it he kept his breathing shallow, trying his best not to rouse another coughing fit from his chest. The triumph he felt over accomplishing that was another indicator of how blastedly ill he was. Really small victories like that shouldn’t make him feel so talented, but since it did it was once more a gauge of how weak he was.

He couldn’t help but think back, in the dark time between Thorin’s departure and Thorin’s return, of the times he’d fallen ill and had no one to notice or care. No one except the Gamgees but even then his neighbors had never felt comfortable enough to make themselves at home in his room, pushing tea and food down his throat. No, he’d had to take care of himself. Sometime he managed to muster the energy to eat, most of the times he could hardly be pressed to get out of the bed to go to the bathroom, let alone make tea. It was such a contrast now, knowing he had thirteen separate dwarves who had literally fought over his bedside over the (dubious) privilege of caring for him. Knowing he was a part of a family, that he was well and truly married.

Thorin…

When he was done with his tea and Dori helped him recline back into the bed Bilbo contemplated how to voice his wish. Surely Thorin had bathed by now, they’d been in Esgaroth for three days. There must have been time for his husband to wash himself, make himself presentable to the Master of Laketown. The mere thought of the human had Bilbo frowning, there was something odd about him. Something not quite right. Like he was covered in a slime that other slimes shivered at sharing the same name with. Bilbo was grateful that the Master was being so kind…but he was worried too.

“Dori?”

Bilbo caught the dwarf’s attention. He smiled as he saw that Dori had grabbed Nori by the ear and had yanked the dwarf down and towards him, the finger of his other hand raised in a typical scolding fashion.

“Yes Bilbo?”

“Can… I mean I’m not trying to insinuate you haven’t taken care of me. You have and you’ll keep doing so til I’m better so I’m not trying to make you think you haven’t but… I miss Thorin. Do you think you could let him come in for a bit?”

“Of course.”

Dori’s gaze was soft and paternal as he let go of Nori and patted Bilbo’s head again. The hobbit smiled and leaned up into the hand, causing the dwarf to chuckle.

“Nori go fetch Thorin.”

The middle ‘Ri brother didn’t need to be told twice. Sticking his tongue out at the back of Dori’s when he was far enough out of his eldest brother’s reach Nori slipped through the door. It wasn’t even five minutes later that a sooty sweat drenched dwarf with bedraggled hair burst through the door and gazed at the hobbit on the bed.

Bilbo felt like he’d been taken back in time. Thorin had been at a forge, Bilbo could tell. If Bilbo was feeling a bit more hobbit he’d tell Thorin to wash up a bit before he came further into the room. Bilbo wasn’t feeling particularly like a respectable hobbit right now. He was a miserable sick hobbit with cotton in his mouth and fluff for his brain. He was bruised and thin, and he had missed his husband so much that it surprised Bilbo to realize now how much he had needed him.

So he made no protest when Thorin kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the bed, wrapping himself around Bilbo protectively. Bilbo tried to breathe in the familiar scent of Thorin when he’d been working as a blacksmith. It was a futile attempt, but at least it was an attempt. Curling into Thorin Bilbo ignored the soot and the sweat, ignored the fact his bed was now getting dirty, he even ignored the fact Dori and Ori were still sitting in chairs beside the bed and that he didn’t have even an illusion of privacy.

None of that mattered because he was with Thorin. They didn’t need words, not right now, not when they were quietly basking in the reality that they were both free. They were out of those blasted elvish dungeons, that they were no longer separated by wooden doors and iron bars. They were free, and it didn’t need words for them to find reassurance with each other or affirm their love. All it took was a tightening of Thorin’s arms, a brush of his chapped lips against Bilbo’s feverish brow, and a contented sigh from Bilbo.

Bilbo drifted off once more to the sounds of knitting needles clacking, but firmly and happily ensconced in his husband’s embrace. Anticipating the day he was deemed well would be the day they finally had their shouting match over the barrels.

**Author's Note:**

> I...well this is a fill for a prompt I found on the kink meme and it turned into a gift for a friend as well. It's a bit rambly and I hope full of fluff and enjoyable things.


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